


Inside and Outside

by HelloHeadquarters



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: Bodyswap, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28416618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelloHeadquarters/pseuds/HelloHeadquarters
Summary: Tae Joon and Elliott jump in a portal and come out the other side in each other's bodies. Hijinks happen.
Relationships: Crypto | Park Tae Joon/Mirage | Elliott Witt
Comments: 29
Kudos: 133





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my drafts forever but I wanna write something less fricken mopey so have classic trope number 309: Body swap.

Hunkered down behind a rock, Tae Joon nervously checked the mag in his R-301 yet again. Next to him Elliott, who was sitting with his back against the same rock, his wrists on his drawn up knees, leaned an arm out to nudge the hacker with his elbow.

"Will you cut that out? You're making me all jittery."

Elliott's own gun was stowed at his hip; a Wingman with a nearly empty chamber. He only had two bullets left and wanted to save them, but the anxious energy radiating off of his squadmate was making him edgy, too. Best to keep it safely stowed and nowhere near his twitchy trigger finger.

Tae Joon turned to him and gave him a withering stare. "Perhaps you do not see how dire the situation is, Witt," he muttered before turning away again and resuming his nervous activities. 

_"Perhaps you don't understand how dire the situation is, Witt,"_ Elliott parroted in a ridiculous tone. "You think this is my first time, kid? Sometimes you get separated from your third, it happens, but she'll make her way back to us, no problem, then we can hurry up and win this thing."

Tae Joon sighed. "Don't see why you couldn't be the one who became separated from us," he muttered. 

"Hey!" Elliott protested. "She's faster than most, happens to Ren- _Wraith_ , all the time, she can handle it. And besides, the only reason _you're_ not the chump hanging around on his lonesome is because I was watching your ass while you played with your little toy. You're welcome, by the way."

Tae Joon lacked the energy to respond. He was the first to admit that a lot of his ill will towards the holo-engineer was probably unearned; a case of wrong place, wrong time for Elliott and then a dynamic he'd felt compelled to maintain because it gave him a sort of identity within the Games. He wasn't just some random trying to hold their own on the back of some fabricated papers and the gun skills he'd only recently acquired in a back alley somewhere; he was _Crypto_ , the grumpy hacker guy who had this hilarious back-and-forth with Mirage, which was better than anyone asking exactly what it was he was trying to hide.

He didn't voice this, of course. Instead he just grunted, still not looking back at Elliott and frowned at the rock face. 

"Setting a portal."

Elliott grinned and clapped a hand on Tae Joon's shoulder. "See, what did I tell you, we'll be sitting pretty in no time."  
He paused to smirk at Tae Joon. "Well, _I'll_ be sitting pretty at least."

Tae Joon sighed and pushed himself up just as the portal roared open beside them and spat out their other teammate. Renee looked exhausted and like she was hurting; there was a small cut above her eyebrow and her skin looked raw at her cheeks. 

"Let's go," she said to them, as Tae Joon nodded and flipped his rifle on to his back.

"You ok?" Elliott asked uncertainly as Renee shook out the pain in her wrist. 

Renee looked at him. "I'm fine," she snapped at him irritably. 

Elliott wasn't swayed nor intimidated. "Bullshit." He reached into his pack and pulled out a syringe before tossing it to her. "Don't say I never got you anything."

"Thanks," she replied dryly, but there was a small ghost of a smile making itself known. She pressed the syringe against her skin and jerked her head at the portal. "You guys head on through, I'm right behind you."

Elliott nodded. "What's on the other side?" he asked warily. 

Renee closed her eyes and leaned back against the rock to catch her breath. "Fun," she said mutely. 

"Liar," Elliott responded. "Come on Cryppy, what say you and I go clean up Wraith's mess for her? _Again_."

Renee huffed out a small breath. "Good luck," she muttered softly.

"I don't need luck when I got all this skill," Elliott responded, sweeping a hand over his frame.

"I was talking to Crypto," Renee said wryly.

Tae Joon laughed softly as Elliott's expression changed to one of faux shock. Elliott was still over-reacting even as Tae Joon placed two hands firmly on his back and shoved him into the portal. 

-

The void technology used by Renee Blasey in the Apex Games was a complicated piece of science. It had origins all over the Frontier, a few components from the core systems, most of it was _probably_ alien and some was definitely from the basement of some guy from HR who liked to go spelunking on the weekends. Either way, back in the days when they were still well funded, the ARES Division had cobbled together a means of warping reality itself without knowing exactly how or caring what kind of damage it might do. It was the type of thing they had _quite_ the reputation for. 

Basically, just because the technology did what it should, that didn't mean that anyone knew how it did it. It also meant that no one knew how to fix it when it went wrong.

If anyone had thought to ask Science Pilot Renee Blasey about this, she would have told them that when it came to living beings, the tech had never been quite right in the first place, but at least she was unique. The only one who had the Void seared through her very being, who felt the pain of being torn apart over and over by the voices and the versions of herself that didn't make it, the dimensions where the world had gone all the way down to hell without stopping and the screams that made silence just a friend she used to know. 

But they didn't ask. Renee knew what the Void did to a person, but she didn't know why, either. 

She had figured, however, that what with Singh Labs being a sparking, leaking disaster beneath Kings Canyon, that no one else would be joining her very exclusive and terrible club. Maybe the Void _could_ hurt people, but now it could only hurt her. She'd made her peace with it, and had even come to look upon the Void with something like fondness. Her life had been saved over and over again by the constant voices and her life was such that she thought a few shooting pains through her skull were a small price to pay. 

It never really occurred to her that phasing others through the Void could be dangerous. They were tourists there, they lacked the vital tech that made walking through dimensions possible, both within their heads and without, she was their guide and they were only passing through. Hell, over the years and the innumerable matches, she had phased so many of her teammates and not once had they ever emerged from the portal in a worse condition than they had entered it in. After all, the most danger they did face was the fact that they were going to end up in the same dimension at the other end, and everyone knew how shitty this one could be. 

Some things in the universe, however, are _special_. Special in a way that defies all logic and reason, in a way that means the cosmos can take it's rule book and shove it, because whatever clandestine ideas it might have, whatever rigid and unchanging _facts_ it might perceive as existing, some things are just special enough to undo it all.

Divine intervention. 

A reality warping cosmic event horizon.

Or, in this case, Elliott R. Witt and his indefatigable bad luck. 

Elliott wasn't exactly unlucky, most of the time. Elliott's life was a mixture of heart breaking tragedy and, well, heart breaking comedy with just enough nonsense sprinkled in to keep him smiling. Elliott was the sort of man who would wash his socks and lose a whole suit in the dryer, who would paint himself into a corner and who would never know that the claim that his phone was waterproof was actually _true_ , because he would never be able to find the damn thing in the snow. He was also the sort of man who gravitated towards the one person who looked upon his existence as a particularly large thorn, who felt himself become more enamoured with every barb and dig Kim threw at him but that was only because Elliott was clever, and saw something beneath the half-assed, edgeless words that looked a lot like a guy who needed a friend. Maybe Elliott was a people pleaser, unwilling to stand up against the mockery that was levied at him with an almost sickening consistency because no one likes someone who can't take a joke, but he appreciated the fact that Tae Joon's insults were directed the same to everyone else. _Everyone_ was an idiot, not just Elliott alone. 

Of course, something had changed not too long ago after the whole stupid business with Loba, and though it had been Tae Joon who had the shortest end of the stick driven through every inch of his character, there was something in his manner around Elliott that was like an unspoken gratitude that Elliott wasn't one of the people doing the driving. Elliott hadn't believed a word of his guilt even before Makoa had told them all the truth, but Tae Joon still wore his dark circles to the ring remembering the ones who had. 

They existed in the strangest place. If unrequited love was a thing then they had made unspoken friendship a whole new trope, or at least rehashed an old one into something _weird_.

Elliott and Tae Joon liked each other, a lot, because they saw the things in each other that no one else did.

They were also too fucking stubborn to say it out loud.

Friendships aren't made to be tested, but sometimes the universe has other ideas, and friendship that only existed on the edges of recognition, like a chore a person had been putting off for too long, was about to be be strained to breaking point.

Elliott and Tae Joon emerged from the portal, but something was definitely wrong.

"Hey, since when do my decoys have portal privilege?" Elliott asked in a voice that was emphatically not his, just as Tae Joon chose that moment to ask why the fuck Elliott had made a hologram that looked like him.

There was a moment of silence, followed by a far more prolonged moment of panic.

At this juncture, something important, something unknown to our two unfortunate legends must be explained. The Void, such as it is, exists between dimensions. That is to say it is neither here nor there. It's everywhere, and it is nowhere.

But it is, ultimately, _everywhere_.

So for every Tae Joon Park, and every Elliott R. Witt, it exists on the edge of what they cannot know but for some it exists in the thin slice of non-reality they must, as all probabilities _must_ , share. 

Basically, Tae Joon and Elliott went into a portal at the _exact same moment_ as an alternate version of Tae Joon and Elliott, and gave the universe an anuerysm. 

The universe does not like Science Pilot Renee Blasey. She keeps on doing such awful things, like making holes where holes should not be, and the universe is forever cleaning up her mess after her lest the whole fabric of reality collapse in on itself and bring about the end of days.

And so it was that Elliott the physical being and Elliott the consciousness were returned to their correct reality, albeit in the body of Tae Joon Park, who in return found himself in both the body of a holographic engineer and in a frantic crisis, and the universe looked upon what they had done and spake thusly:

"Fuck it, close enough."

Compared to the vastness of multiple realities, the fact that these poor, long-suffering heroes found themselves in quite possibly the weirdest quandary ever known to man or beast was nothing.

To them, however, it was everything.

"What the fuck?" Elliott demanded, and justifiably so.

Tae Joon, in Elliott's body and out of his wits, stared open mouthed at the body he had always considered his own and echoed this statement with his silence.

"What. The. Fuck?" Elliott remarked again in Tae Joon's gruff, Korean lilt.

"I.." Tae Joon began, and then stopped himself, because his brain was a clockwork engine and could handle anything, so long as it was neatly ordered, and Elliott sounding scared was first in the queue for analysis. Elliott sometime had a nervous edge to his voice, but this was pure, unadulterated fear, _his_ fear, and it did not belong in Elliott's mouth. 

"I'm you!" Elliott continued, because Elliott's mind was twenty wind up monkeys in the midst of a sugar rush, and the chattering stopped for neither time nor tide. 

"You... you are not me. You are... in me."

He'd never seen such a pained expression on his own face. When in doubt, make a stupid joke, but Elliott was mired so deeply in doubt and disbelief that the innuendo just wouldn't come.

Instead he shouted "Renee!" at the top of his lungs, before bringing hands that were not his own to his face and groaning. 

Tae Joon walked slowly up to the portal. "Let's go back through," he said decisively, because someone had to be in charge and Elliott was looking rather close to a complete tantrum.

At that moment, Renee popped out of the portal as if she were going to the store for milk and looked at who she though was Tae Joon tiredly.

"What?"

"What? What? I'm fucking him is what!" Elliott shouted, pointing at his own body.

"You're fucking him? Is now really the time to be telling me this?" Renee ran a hand across her forehead. "I mean, I always knew there was some weird tension between you but-"

Elliott grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look him in the eyes. "I mean, I am not Hyeon, I am Elliott. Your portal fucking switched us!"

Renee looked casually back at her portal. "Huh," she said quietly. "How about that."

Elliott was almost beside himself with rage. "Huh?? How about you damn well fix it?!"

Renee shrugged. "How?"

Tae Joon groaned next to her while Elliott collapsed to the ground on Tae Joon's knees. 

"This does not seem strange to you?" Tae Joon asked while Elliott used his voice to wail.

Renee looked at him. "Yes, but the Void... It does things to people. Always has. Why not this?"

"Who cares why?" Elliott lamented from the ground. "Just make it right!"

Renee chewed on her lip for a moment. "I don't know how."

Elliott let out another sob while Tae Joon, who practically had a Masters in dealing with scary shit happening very quickly, sighed. "We should-"

"It's a sniper, move!" Renee informed them suddenly, diving to the side and pushing Tae Joon to the ground with her. A Kraber bullet split the air above them.

"Fix later," she said seriously. "Fight now."

It turned out to be an clusterfuck of epic proportions. Elliott tried to send out a decoy and instead found himself sitting in open ground like a neon target while Makoa lasered him with his devotion. Tae Joon was a little more level headed and sent out an actual decoy, but inexperience sent it colliding with a rock and vanishing instantly. Renee took Makoa out but with her two squadmates currently neck deep in a crisis of identity, she didn't stand much chance. 

The squad was wiped and sent to the med bay to lick their various wounds. 

-

When they woke up, side by side in the med bay, both Tae Joon and Elliott mimicked each other's actions by sitting bolt upright and staring at each other. Tae Joon groaned with Elliott's deep tones and slumped back down on to the pillows while Elliott frantically patted his hands over Tae Joon's chest and pulled at his hair. 

"Stop that," Tae Joon said wearily as he pinched the bridge of his nose with synthetic free fingers for the first time in years. 

"How are you being so calm about this?" Elliott hissed, his voice breaking as he tried to work his way around a new set of vocal chords. 

Tae Joon looked over at him, the drop of his own stomach still present when he saw his own face staring back, and sighed. "Is panicking going to fix this mess?" he said levelly. 

"It might!" Elliott replied with a hint of hysteria. 

Tae Joon said nothing but held his gaze until Elliott too fell back on his bed, defeated. 

"We... should perhaps not tell anyone about this," Tae Joon said quietly. "Besides Renee, I think it would be better to keep this between us."

Elliott was staring blankly at the ceiling. "Right. Sure," he muttered angrily. "Of course."

"I for one don't wish to end up as some scientific study buried in a lab somewhere, and I am sure you do not either."

"Whatever you say."

"And I would appreciate it if you could drop the attitude. This is not my fault and I too am in the same predicament as you are."

Elliott had never heard himself sounding so clear and concise. He screwed his eyes up and pounded at the mattress with his, or rather, with Tae Joon's, fists. "Oh no, buddy, you are far from as screwed as me. You got the cherry end of this deal. What you got there is a gift. But me? I'm a _nerd_."

Tae Joon felt a spike of irritation shoot through him. "That is your concern? Witt, you are the shallowest person I have ever met."

"Look man, I'm not denying that I'm shallow, believe me, but you're wearing my livelihood, Kim. Mirage isn't just some super handsome, suave charming guy who everybody loves, he's a _brand_. I can't have some clueless hacker setting up shop in the merchandise. It's bad for business."

Tae Joon wasn't at all swayed by this. "Just... shut up. I'm not going to hurt your precious face."

Elliott shifted uncomfortably on his bed. "That's all I ask." He lifted his hands and flexed his fingers in front of his face. "What's... what's all this stuff, anyway?"

"Nothing. It doesn't matter. Do not play with it," Tae Joon instructed him firmly. 

Elliott held his hands up. "All right, got it," he said defensively. 

"Don't touch any of it ," Tae Joon continued as Elliott slowly began lifting those same hands towards his face. They fell back on to the bed sheets with a thump.

"Youre being kinda modest, considering," Elliott grumbled. "One of us is gonna have to take a leak at some point."

Tae Joon reflexively looked down at his crotch, heart thumping suddenly. Closing his eyes, he tried to keep his composure. "We are both, adults, Elliott. You don't have to be so immature."

Elliott shrugged. "I'm just saying. No point being so delicate about your body when I'm the one in the driving seat."

"Odd that you even have the nerve to say that," Tae Joon said. "And it is not... some sort of notion of decency. The synthetics are... not, I'm sure you know, something I was born with. They are not exactly comfortable sometimes, and interfering with them might cause you discomfort."

Elliott looked at him, head slightly tilted. "They hurt?"

"Not often," Tae Joon said, unable to maintain Elliott's gaze even when it was being directed at him with his own damn eyes and turning away.

He could see Elliott flexing his fingertips once again on the edge of his vision, could almost hear the way Elliott was searching his accidental new body for pain.

"What should I do?"

Tae Joon looked over, confused.

"Do?"

"If they start hurting. What do I do? Is there like a lotion or do you take a hot bath or what?"

Tae Joon shook his head slightly. "You... put up with it."

Elliott's mouth fell open. "What? No. That's stupid. One of your friends is _literally_ the best medic in the system, and you've just been 'putting up with it?'. Hyeon, man, you don't have to be some broody, suffer in silence type, ok? I promise we'll all still think you're cool if you go in for a little pain relief."

At these words, one of the medics walked into the room, a clipboard in their hand and an official Apex Smile on their face. Tae Joon threw Elliott a pleading look and Elliott sighed softly. 

"Good morning," they said, even if the expressions on the two men's faces should have told them it was anything but. "How are we?"

Elliott and Tae Joon just shrugged and made noncommittal noises in the back of their throats. That seemed to satisfy the medic, who walked closer and began to check their vitals.

"Nasty hit you took there, Crypto," they commented as they took the hand of the hacker, if not the attention. 

Elliott watched dazedly as the medic looked at him. "Wasn't your head though, you feeling ok?"

Suddenly realising that the medic was addressing him, Elliott sat up a little straighter. "Me? Oh, I'm fine. Perfect actually. As usu-"

Behind the medic, Elliott could see Tae Joon frantically shaking his head and making a silent crossing motion with his arms. Elliott swallowed heavily and made a conscious effort to soften his tone. 

"I'm fine," he mumbled. 

The medic gave him a quick look but then decided that a sudden bout of chatiness wasn't exactly terminal, not even for Hyeon Kim, and turned to deal with 'Mirage' instead. 

"How about you?" they asked, lifting his wrist and checking his pulse. 

"I'm good," Tae Joon said a little too loudly. 

The medic looked at them shrewdly and then decided that perhaps this was the most subtle and useless prank in history. Both sets of vitals were fine so with a promise they'd both be free to go in a matter of moments, the medic left them to their own devices.

"I do not talk as much as you," Tae Joon said once they were alone again.

"And I don't shout everything I say!" Elliott snapped back. "...except that."

Tae Joon smirked, the expression looking right at home on Mirage's face. "Still, as soon as we get out of here I think we should go to see Renee at once." The expression fell from his face and Tae Joon squirmed a little where he sat.

"Sounds like a plan. Hey, everything ok over there buddy?" Elliott asked.

Tae Joon looked sheepish. "You need to go to the bathroom."

To his surprise, Elliott just laughed. "Then go man, I got nothing to hide. But hey, don't get jealous, yeah?" he added as Tae Joon got to his feet.

Tae Joon could forgive Elliott the wink, he'd done it himself before, but he would have a much harder time letting go of the image of himself shooting out a full set of finger guns.


	2. Chapter 2

In the thirty-seven minutes since they had left the medical wing, Tae Joon had told Elliott _not_ to poke at his implants no less than five more times, while himself wondering, even after Elliott's lengthy explanation, what the hell a 'T-Zone' actually was. Apparently it was very important to Elliott that his not be allowed to dry out, and Tae Joon let himself grow mildly alarmed at where it might be, but he realised his mind was wandering again and he was jolted back to reality when Elliott used his voice to say the word 'manscaping'. 

"Are you even listening to me?" Elliott demanded. 

"No," Tae Joon replied distractedly glancing around. "Look, let's just go straight to Renee. We cannot fix this without her help, and the sooner it _is_ fixed, the better."

Elliott expression remained vaguely pissed off, but if Tae Joon was being honest it only helped to sell the illusion that it was really him inside his own skin.

"Not so fast, buddy. You're cramping up, gotta get some food in you first."

"Perhaps you are just experiencing my body's usual reaction to being around you," Tae Joon said with a smirk.

Elliott pretended to do a quick mental stock take of his bodily sensations, then shook his head. "Don't think so kid. You're not drooling or blowing your load in your shorts. Must be hungry."

Tae Joon sighed. "I wish you wouldn't say things like that when you're using my voice to say them."

"Shorts?" Elliott said with an affected air of innocence.

Tae Joon pushed his shoulder roughly. "Fine. Eat first. Then we go see Blasey."

-

After telling Elliott that ice cream for breakfast was out of the question, not only because Tae Joon was lactose intolerant but also because it wasn't his damn birthday either, they had just finished washing up their dishes when Tae Joon felt a tap on what was currently his shoulder. 

"There you are, Witt, been looking for you all over."

"Why?" Tae Joon demanded shrewdly while Elliott let out a soft groan next to him. He quickly tried to tack a disarming grin on to the end of his statement. The overall effect was terrifying. 

Ajay took a small step back, the faintest hint of concern painting her features. "Something the matter?" 

Elliott looked to the ceiling. Ajay was a good friend and could see through people like they were made of glass. She was bound to know something was up, especially if Hyeon couldn't get his shit together for five seconds and maybe stop acting like everyone he spoke to was one concealed weapon away from stabbing him in the back. 

Tae Joon coughed and threw a quick look at Elliott, who was still staring at the ceiling as if it could get him out of this mess. 

"Uh... yeah, fine, what? I'm... It's _his_ fault," he said, pointing at Elliott, who just glared at him. "All that paranoid nerd stuff, must be catching, right?" Tae Joon tried to wink at Ajay and just emphatically blinked at her instead. 

Ajay eyed him suspiciously, and looked like she was about to press further before Elliott spoke up.

"Shut up, Witt," he muttered, the words sounding almost harshly familiar to Tae Joon, making him wince.

Ajay turned to give Elliott the smallest of frowns before shrugging her shoulders and turning back to Tae Joon.

"Anyway," she continued softly. "You said you were gonna show me how to do that sleight of hand trick you do... you know, for the kiddie's vaccination drive next week."

Tae Joon felt his throat constrict a little while on the edge of his vision he saw his own eyes widen in shock.

Shaking himself, he tried to relax his body, an easy feat after a lifetime of slouching, and waved his hands in a ridiculous imitation of Elliott's trick. "Right. Yeah... yeah, I mean of course I was." As if struck by inspiration, Tae Joon yawned and stretched his hands out over his head. "It's just... I'm still kinda beat from the last match. Rain check?"

He cast his eyes to Elliott for approval but his expression was unreadable. For Elliott to get involved in this conversation would just be plain weird, so Tae Joon was on his own for this one.

Ajay was looking at him strangely, and for a second Tae Joon couldn't quite place it, and then he realised. Elliott wasn't in the habit of saying no, even temporarily.

"That's... that's ok, right?" he pressed uncertainly.

He watched as Ajay's mouth fell open just ever so slightly and she squeezed his forearm tightly. "Take all the time you need and let me know if you don't feel right soon, ok Ell?"

"Right, yeah, um, thanks Ajay. Swear, I'll help you out just as soon as I'm myself again."

Elliott let out an ugly snort that he tried to pretend was a sneeze. 

"You best not be coming down with anything either, Hyeon," she warned him gently. "Renee was looking for you earlier. Seemed important."

Elliott straightened up at once. "Great!" He clamped his lips tightly together, before muttering, "do you know where she is?"

Ajay still looked mildly troubled, but she clearly decided it wasn't life or death and let it go.

"Last I saw she was hanging around in the workshop," she said.

After saying their goodbyes, Tae Joon and Elliott headed straight for the workshop. It was clear that both men had been rattled by their encounter with the medic and their atrocious performances, and there was a stilted silence in the air between them. Tae Joon kept opening Elliott's mouth as if he were about to say something before deciding better of it, if only because be wasn't quite sure what it was he wanted to say. Elliott, on the other hand, wasn't exactly silent but he would randomly mutter pieces of words before looking at Tae Joon strangely and stopping. 

As they neared the workshop, the sound of heavy metallic footsteps reached their ears. Tae Joon looked at Elliott and mouthed "Pathfinder?", as Elliott screwed his nose before grabbing him by the front of his shirt and dragging him into a supply closet. 

"We already screwed up pretty well with Ajay," Elliott hissed as Tae Joon accidentally forced a knee into his leg. "Let's not bring the robot into it."

Tae Joon shifted his newly much more broad shoulders backwards and yelped in pain as the corner of a shelf dug into his back. "This was a poor choice of hiding spot," he grumbled.

Elliott glared at him. "I had to improvise, ok? _You_ were the one who said we needed to keep this to ourselves and yeah, ok, you were right but that means we gotta avoid people because we sure as shit suck at being each other."

Tae Joon felt weirdly challenged. His Elliott impersonation had never been a point of contention for him before, but because it was Elliott saying that he was bad at it, he came over almost ridiculously defensive.

"It's not exactly hard to walk around like I think I am god's gift," he hissed, prodding the tips of two fingers into the front of his own shoulder. "It's not my fault if I don't constantly need to hear the sound of my own voice."

Elliott's lips tightened. "Yeah, well being stuck inside your shell is no picnic either, buddy," he muttered, returning Tae Joon's shove. "How do you live like this? If the boring doesn't kill you, the tension will. I swear man, I am this close to crapping out a diamond."

Tae Joon tossed his head in frustration. "You see? _This_ is why we need to find Renee and get this fixed as quickly as possible. If I have to spend much longer being you I'll-"

"You'll what?" Elliott retaliated, squaring up to him.

Tae Joon looked out at his own face, at the anger creasing his brow, the venom in his eyes, and didn't like what he saw at all.

He reached up and pushed Elliott away, sending him sprawling back into a shelf of cleaning supplies that rained down percussively onto the floor.

The door to the closet clicked and swung open, bathing them in the bright sunlight that filtered in from the hall.

"Hi friends!"

Tae Joon's eyes flicked to the doorway where Pathfinder's large frame stood silhouetted, before flicking back to Elliott who was painfully hunched against the wall, muttering all kinds of threats in Tae Joon's low voice. 

He realised he was waiting for Elliott to speak when it should have been him and he wracked his brain trying to remember any interaction between Elliott and the MRVN.

"Hey Path," he said, the cocky tone wavering as the sour feeling in his gut persisted.

"Why are you in the closet?" Pathfinder asked with a question mark on his screen. 

Tae Joon couldn't think of a single answer that didn't mean having to explain his petulant actions, so he embraced his inner Mirage, as it were, shrugged and said, "Making out."

Elliott's mouth fell open, but he soon seemed to catch on and shook his head. "Not if you were the last person alive, Witt," he muttered. He turned to Pathfinder. "The idiot thought it would be funny to lock me in here. No surprise he got caught up in it himself." 

Pathfinder let out a modulated laugh. "Good one, friend! ...I think."

Tae Joon was still looking at Elliott when he spoke to Pathfinder again, feeling truly awful. "Did you want something? Uh... buddy?" His eyes slid to Pathfinder at last. 

"I heard a crash," Pathfinder explained, his optic whirring down to look at the mess on the floor. "Are you alright Crypto?"

Elliott glared at Tae Joon once more. "Fine," he muttered. 

Pathfinder looked between the two men for a second before straightening up. "Ok then!"

After he was gone, Tae Joon didn't even hesitate. 

"Elliott, I am so sorry, I did not mean for-"

Elliott waved a hand. "Forget it. We're both getting riled up from this stupid situation and hey, at least it's not my face getting bruised."

Tae Joon still didn't feel any better. He hadn't intended to hurt Elliott, and the fact that he hadn't held back with Elliott looking like he currently did was too much truth even for him. 

Elliott stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Seriously, give it a break man. If only because I can't stand seeing that stupid look on my own face."

"Thought you would be used to it by now?" Tae Joon responded before he could stop himself. 

"You're so funny," Elliott replied, his tone even and completely unamused. "I'd laugh if I wasn't so certain that the act would literally break your face."

They walked on a few more steps until once again words fell from Tae Joon without his permission. It seemed as though being inside Elliott was lending him a few of the trickster's habits. 

"She was surprised. _Angry_ surprised," he finally muttered to himself. 

"What?" Elliott replied as they finally reached the workshop. 

"Ajay. When I said no to her, she was surprised, but she was kind of angry, too."

Elliott let out a huff of air. "What? Ajay? No way. Why the hell would she be angry? Ajay's the best."

Tae Joon shook his head. "Lets just find Renee."

-

She was sitting on the desk that composed Elliott's workstation when they arrived, and with a frown and a jerk of Tae Joon's hand from Elliot she slid off and folded her arms. 

"How's it going? Still in the wrong outfits?"

Elliott continued to glare. "You know we are," he said. Tae Joon got the distinct feeling that something he had said had landed somewhere awkward, and he could feel a general uncomfortableness coming from Elliott that had little to do with which body he was in. 

"So come on, fix us already. I'm getting all maudlin just from hunching over all the time." He nudged Renee gently on the shoulder before heading over to his table and picking up a loose bolt. Tossing it into the air and catching it again, Renee was looking at him with a slightly concerned look on her face. 

"Don't need to remind you Elliott that it took literal decades to even crack void tech in the first place. This," she said waving a hand between the two of them, "is brand new. I- I don't even know if I _can_ fix it."

Elliott made a strangled sound and dropped the bolt loudly back on to the desk. "You're sure?"

Renee shrugged her shoulders. "I'm sorry guys, but I don't even know where to start. I could try shoving you two through some more portals but that might only make it worse."

Elliott snorted. "Worse than this?" he asked sweeping a hand over Tae Joon's frame. Tae Joon glared at him. 

Elliott held up a hand. "Ok, I'm sorry, but you know the longer this goes on the worse it's gonna be. That favour I owe Ajay is tiny, there's a bunch of stuff I need to do, stuff I don't think you can handle."

"Like what?"

Elliott shrugged. "Mirage stuff. _Elliott_ stuff. I mean come on, I'm sure there's loads of things you need to take care of that I can't. You must have other responsibilities besides busting my chops in the ring."

Tae Joon didn't quite meet his eye and instead turned to Renee. "Perhaps you don't know how to fix it, but is there not some way we can at least figure out where to start?"

Renee looked at him, and it was a strange look, vaguely hard but also curious. "It's so strange to hear Elliott talk that way," she muttered, almost to herself. 

"Well I'm gonna take that as a compliment," Elliott responded under his breath.

"Anyway, I was thinking that. You and I both know our best bet is the labs under the Canyon. Can't say I'm too thrilled about heading back there though." Renee's voice drifted off towards the end of her sentence, her eyes clouding over slightly as her brow furrowed. 

Elliott stepped forward and placed a cautious hand on her arm. "All said and done, this isn't your fault, don't break yourself trying to fix what you didn't... uh, break."

The mist cleared from her eyes and a small smile ghosted her lips.

"What the hell. You'd do the same for me, right?"


	3. Chapter 3

Elliott stared at the cat. While Tae Joon flitted about his room gathering up supplies, the cat stared back. 

"You think she knows?" Elliott asked, looking over at Tae Joon as he packed a long yellow cable into a khaki rucksack. 

Tae Joon gave the feline a shrewd look. "I wouldn't put it past her. She's a lot smarter than she looks." Tae Joon glanced over at Elliott. "Like you."

"Hey! Wait, hang on..."

Tae Joon actually let out a short, breathy laugh. "You need to move, Witt. If we're going to get to the labs before anyone is expecting us back, you cannot sit there eyeballing my cat all day. Look in that drawer," Tae Joon said pointing at the dresser next to Elliott. "There are spare clothes in there."

Elliott hefted himself to his feet and moved over to the dresser. Opening it, he began to pull out shirts and pants that had been stuffed inside with reckless abandon, with clearly no attempt to actually fold them.

"Dude," Elliott complained as he pulled out a heavily creased, faded grey shirt with a small cartoon dog embroidered on the chest. "Remind me to get you some grown up clothes." 

Tae Joon looked at the ceiling. "Just... pick something idiot."

Elliott let out a much put upon sigh and began to drag out various items of even shabbier states as he went on. There wasn't much in the drawer really, and he turned back to Tae Joon.

"Where's the rest?" he asked.

"Rest of what?" Tae Joon replied distractedly as he searched under his bed for something. 

"The rest of your clothes, man."

Elliott's own head popped up above Tae Joon's mattress with a slightly confused look on his face.

"That's it," he said simply.

" _That's it?_ " Elliott parroted in an incredulous tone. "Man, I've got more stuff in my sock drawer."

Tae Joon waved an impatient hand. "What's there is there. Take it or leave it."

Elliott turned back to drawer. "Jackass has got like two and a half shirts but still wears five fucking belts to the ring," he muttered under his breath.

"What?"

"Nothing... nothing," Elliott said as he continued to root around. 

He decided that the lesser of all the evils was a green shirt that had been nearer the top of the pile and spared the worst of the wrinkling. As he began to push everything back into the drawer to close it, he noticed the corner of something nestled at the bottom. He pulled it out slowly and looked at it. It was a photograph of a sweet looking girl with long red hair, her head turned to one side as she sat on a wall, legs dangling out of the bottom of the frame.

"Cute," he said, turning around to face Tae Joon. "Old girlfriend?"

Tae Joon looked from Elliott to the rectangle in his hands. Eyes widening slightly, he took three quick steps across the room and snatched it from Elliott's hands.

"No," was all he said shortly. Elliott raised his eyebrows. 

"Sorry man, didn't mean to snoop." He watched as Tae Joon opened a drawer on his computer desk and carefully placed the photo inside. 

The air was suddenly charged and awkward and Elliott realised he had somehow fucked up on an epic scale. He took a cautious step forward, t-shirt still clutched in his hands and cleared his throat. 

"Hey, ki- Hyeon," he began softly, but Tae Joon slammed the drawer with a sense of finality and turned to face him.

"Get changed and let's go."

-

The next point of call was Elliott's room. Tae Joon sat on Elliott's bed still feeling uncomfortable and slightly angry, eyes not really looking at any thing while the mattress would bounce and jump occasionally as Elliott threw various pots and lotions beside him. 

"You don't need to take all of this stuff," Tae Joon said eventually, after being roughly brought back to reality when a stick of lip balm bounced off his shoulder.

"Correct," Elliott replied. "I don't. _You_ do."

Tae Joon bit his lip and breathed out for a second before responding. "We won't even be gone for a full day, you cannot possibly need any of this."

Elliott took a large duffel bag from his closet and dropped it on to the bed. "Hey, kid. You remember the last time we hung out together and our bodies got switched? Excuse me for thinking this might not go smoothly." He began to pile the various products into the bag. "You ought to be proud of me, doing my best uptight Cryppy impression." He looked at Tae Joon and plastered a serious expression on to his face. "I'm always prepared," he said dramatically. 

"Piss off," Tae Joon replied without hesitation, but the truth was that Elliott had a point. He had been so focused on fixing the mess they found themselves in that he hadn't really allowed himself to entertain the possibility that something might go wrong. 

Elliott turned back to his closet and pulled out a grey button down and jeans. He tossed them to Tae Joon with the instruction to put them on, casting one final resigned look down at his own drab and rumpled get up.

Tae Joon got to his feet and looked for somewhere to change before Elliott gave him a tired look.

"You've got nothing I haven't seen before," he said wryly. "Cause... cause you know... you're me," he clarified. 

Tae Joon pulled off the slightly gross shirt he had been wearing and dropped it on to the floor before snatching up the clean one.

Elliott frowned at him. "Seriously man? Come on," he said, leaning down to pick it up. He paused in front of his own topless form and clicked his tongue. "Damn, looking pretty good man. Honestly, you've never looked better."

"Please shut up," Tae Joon replied as he shrugged his arms through the sleeves and began to work on the buttons. 

"Downright irresistible," Elliott continued because he was, amongst other things, a little shit. 

Tae Joon caught sight of himself in fresh clothing in one of the many mirrors that littered the engineer's room. He felt something weird hitch inside his chest but he soon shook it off and made a derisive sound.

"If you're into that kind of thing," he said with a slight sneer. 

Elliott stopped for a moment. "Are you?"

"Didn't I already tell you to shut up?"

Elliott laughed and clapped Tae Joon on the back. "Come on, let's go find Blasey before she has to come find us."

Tae Joon pulled a face. "Indeed."

-

Renee was waiting for them, already settled into the jump seat of the small runner she had procured when they caught up to her. Technically they weren't supposed to be playing around in the arena outside of matches but after a few greased wheels from Elliott and a few more severe glares from Renee, no one had exactly said no when they asked if they could either. Tae Joon was relieved; the idea of having to hack into various security systems of an exceptionally high calibre and remain under the radar was not one he cared to entertain. It was almost funny to think that the best way to not get caught somewhere was just to ask nicely if he could go there in the first place. If only he had known that sooner, he thought wryly. He could have saved himself so much trouble.

Of course that was absolute bullshit, but Tae Joon had noticed how much more relaxed he felt when he was talking and walking around in Elliott's skin. Elliott lived in the one place he himself had always shied away from, and so it was no surprise to see him in the spotlight and he had no reason to try to hide his face or turn away.

The only problem with that, of course, was that Elliott was on the other side of that coin but with the key difference that he didn't know why Tae Joon chose to remain in the shadows. Luckily Elliott was just putting it down to his temperament and nothing more, but as the ship hummed over the high cliffs that surrounded King's Canyon, Tae Joon was reminded of the one uncomfortable truth that he and Elliott currently shared. 

That no matter how much each man might look and sound like it, neither of them were actually Hyeon Kim. 

"Are we almost there?" he asked Renee nervously. 

"You ask me that one more time Kim and I'll turn this ship around and no one will get to go into the void," Renee answered wryly.

"Aww, man," Elliott piped up, picking up on the bit with his usual swagger. "Be cool dude," he said, slapping Tae Joon on the arm.

Tae Joon tried to smile but the truth was that the labs held memories that made him feel angry, sad and powerless, and he didn't enjoy the reminder. As Renee turned her attention towards landing the ship, he felt a hand hesitantly lay on his shoulder.

"It's gonna be ok, really. We'll be back where we supposed to be and taking digs at each other before you know it."

Tae Joon wanted to tell him that he couldn't possibly know that, that he was being stupidly optomistic and starry eyed, but instead he took a small breath and said thank you. 

-

The labs were as much of a condemned hazard as they had been the last time Tae Joon had been on the Canyon. The fact that his take down of the Repulsor and the subsequent destruction of the surrounding area _hadn't_ deterred the Games organisers from letting their Legends run around there and risk death from structural damage as much as bullets really told him that he couldn't have picked a better target. 

He could tell that Renee was feeling uneasy too, easily even more than he was because though she wasn't exactly a talker, the tension she was generating was enough to make Tae Joon look practically laid back. 

"You didn't have to come with us," he said as they made their way through the fresh growth that surrounded the buried labs. A Flyer screeched overhead and all three of them tightened the grips on their pistols. It wasn't match conditions, but that didn't mean that the Canyon couldn't and wouldn't kill them if given the opportunity. 

Renee looked at him like he was stupid, with Elliott mimicking her expression close behind. 

Tae Joon relented. "Ok. You did have to come with us but... If it helps, I don't like that you are here."

Renee tilted her head to one side, but her shoulders seemed to drop a little. "You and me both," she replied. 

They made their way through the labs. Tae Joon could see the way that Elliott was trying to keep himself between Renee and the large windows that gave a view to the torturous looking chair in the centre room. For his part, Tae Joon took a small pause before leading them into a room he had seen much earlier than anyone knew. 

Renee crossed over to a small, sparking panel and began tapping away while Tae Joon and Elliott stood awkwardly behind her. Tae Joon was distantly watching Renee's back but out of the corner of his eye he suddenly noticed Elliott looking between him and the small room that was closed off from them behind a thick pane of glass.

Suddenly Elliott's eyes widened and his mouth fell open, but Tae Joon quickly pressed down on his foot with a heavy boot to shut him up.

Elliott's expression went from shocked to pained to mildly furious in the time it took for Renee to be done with whatever she needed to do at the computers, and when she turned around again Elliott had managed to rearrange Tae Joon's face into an expression of mild interest. 

"Alright, the portal here is just a bigger version of the ones I make, but from what I can tell we might have more luck with the Phase Runner on Olympus."

Elliott frowned. "What's the difference?"

Renee opened her mouth to explain, but Tae Joon quickly held up a hand. 

"That's time we just don't have even if you could understand it, Witt," he said.

"Alright, don't be-"

Tae Joon shook his head. "Elliott, I wasn't being... I simply meant it's not our area of expertise. I wouldn't understand just as much if it were you trying to explain your holo-tech, and I wouldn't be foolish enough to try."

Elliott seemed placated by this, at least until Renee spoke up. "You don't have to flatter his ego, you know. He can do that all on his own."

"I know," Tae Joon said with a sigh. "But this way might be quicker."

"True."

Elliott tossed his head. "Screw you both," he said, but his heart wasn't really in it.

"Come on, let's go. I don't wanna be here any longer than I have to be," Renee muttered darkly.

"Agreed," Tae Joon said, and they made their way to the doors of the labs.

As they passed the terrifying looking chair again it was Tae Joon who blocked Renee's view, which made sense as his newly acquired frame was slightly broader than his usual one. Unfortunately it didn't stop her from clutching her head in pain as they passed the room, but she soon shook it off after both men went out of their way to talk over whatever it was the voice was saying in her head. 

-

Once they were back on board the ship, Elliott was on his phone in moments while Renee started the runner up and got them airborne. 

"No selfies," Tae Joon warned him.

"Do I-" Elliott began, but then he just shook his head. "Look," he said, showing the screen to Tae Joon. "There's no way we're getting down onto Olympus until the next match is done."

Tae Joon groaned as he read the announcement of the date of the next match, and as it was only two days away he knew that the whole place would be swarming with MRVNs and technicians making sure it was television ready. 

"Problem?" Renee asked from the jump seat.

While Elliott explained, Tae Joon felt himself begin to spiral further and further down. More time in the wrong body meant the more time Elliott spent in his, and the more likely it was that Elliott would stumble across something he shouldn't. Add into that the fact that it now seemed they would have to put on a very public performance of being one another, and Tae Joon was feeling well and truly fucked. 

-

"Elliott, can I just... is everything ok?"

Tae Joon sighed. Did they ever fucking leave Elliott alone? He plastered a painful smile on his face only because he could feel himself nearing breaking point but not so much that he would be able to stand letting Elliott down. 

Ajay looked down at him. He especially couldn't snap at Ajay. She was one of the few people Tae Joon knew who was genuinely a good person and he didn't want to alienate her from Elliott. The medic came and sat beside him.

"Look," she said gently. "You tell me up front if I'm being nosy but... You been spending a lot of time with... with Hyeon. Now I know you two never got along so is something wrong?"

Tae Joon shook his head. Of course she would be the first to notice. He tried to think of what Elliott would do in this situation.

"Kid hangs around me like a shadow for a day and you think what? I'm about to go down on bended knee?"

Ajay shrugged. "Or throw a punch at him." She rolled her shoulders and leaned in a little. "Just... be careful. You don't have to make everyone love you Ell, you know that, right? And if Kim don't like you, well, that's his loss."

"I do like him," Tae Joon said without thinking. 

"Yeah," Ajay said, getting to her feet and clapping him on the shoulder. "That's your problem Ell, you like everyone. Perhaps even them you shouldn't."

-

Elliott stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Being Hyeon wasn't a complete nightmare, but since the hacker had rightfully suggested they take a break from each other for a little while he had to admit, it was pretty lonely. He'd been wandering around the complex alone, because Hyeon wasn't the type to seek out company and he had promised him he wouldn't go back into his room unattended. Elliott wasn't stupid and Hyeon was clearly hiding something, but Elliott wasn't going to get him to confess if he really didn't want to tell. 

Still, he couldn't stop himself from thinking about the photograph he had found, the sweet girl pictured there and the sadness and anger the memory of her seemed to inspire in Hyeon. Whatever story was there, Elliott already knew it didn't have a happy ending and he should have realised that finding out more about the mysterious hacker was never going to be sunshine and rainbows. He sighed and turned away from the mirror. It was a lot easier to be a dick to Hyeon when all he felt for him was resentment. 

Deciding that enough was enough, Elliott went to find Hyeon again. This nightmare was hard enough to go through but Elliott was fucked if he was going to go through it alone. Time was pressing in on them and it wouldn't be long before they had to face a real test, and convince the entire Outlands that everything was at it should be. 

Elliott was going to have to teach Hyeon how to be Mirage, and the thought both terrified him and almost made him piss his pants with laughter. 

-

"Oh jeez, my spine's never gonna be the same again after this, is it? Stand up straight, for the love of-"

Hyeon glared at him but did as he was asked, drawing himself up to Elliott's full height. 

"Perhaps it would be better if we found a reason not to compete in the next match," Tae Joon said as Elliott made a final check of the holo gear he was wearing. 

"Yeah, that won't be suspicious at all. Honestly I'm starting to wonder if it might not be a good idea to tell people we're screwing just to get them off our backs."

Tae Joon choked a little on his own breath.

"It makes sense," Elliott said. "Would explain why we've been inseparable the last few days at least."

Tae Joon huffed in exasperation. "And what about before that, when all we did was make fun of each other in the ring?"

Elliott stood in front of him. "Sexual tension? Practically textbook."

Tae Joon couldn't stop the small smile that made itself known. "You're not as charming as you think you are, Witt," he muttered. 

"Yeah I am. Right, try it now."

Tae Joon sighed and sent out a decoy. It slammed into the wall and disappeared. 

"You did that on purpose."

"Why would I do it on purpose?"

"To make me look stupid in the match!"

"You don't need my help with that."

"See, I knew that was coming," Elliott grumbled, snatching up Tae Joon's drone from the bed. "But I walked straight into it anyway."

He turned the drone over in his hands before tossing it gently into the air. It hovered in front of him, unfocused and unmoving.

Tae Joon handed him the controls. "It's fragile, please don't break it."

"Yeah, yeah, keep your pants on." 

Tae Joon watched with every one of Elliott's muscles tight with anxiety as Elliott flew the drone around the room. Just as he was starting to relax, Elliott caught one of the wings against the dresser and sent it clattering to the floor. 

"Oops," Elliott said. Tae Joon bent down and retrieved the drone. 

"Two days is not going to be long enough, is it?" he said, sending out another decoy that crumpled to pieces at once. 

"No," Elliott agreed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick but nonetheless MASSIVE thank you to everyone who left kudos and commented, especially for the wonderful words that make me wanna write more and get my butt in gear. You are all wonderful.

If luck was on their side, Tae Joon and Elliott would have rounded out their squad with Renee as they stood side by side on the slowly lowering platform. 

"Let's go crack some skulls, hey mates?" Ramya said eagerly, one hand cradling the stock of Shiela as the cold wind began to whip their faces.

"Yep," Tae Joon agreed shortly while Elliott remained silent. Half of their lessons for each other had been when to talk and when to not, and it had boiled down to two very basic notes:

Elliott - Almost never.  
Tae Joon - Constantly.

To say that neither man was happy or surprised by this was at least fair.

"Let's go over there, Shiela's getting hungry."

They landed on a collection of houses near the now condemned Phase Runner. Tae Joon gave it a wary look and nudged Elliott in the ribs.

Elliott tilted his head. "Not without Renee, " he muttered ominously. 

"Bad guy, right there," Ramya growled excitedly, gesturing to the floor of the second storey house they touched down in.

Tae Joon cocked his head and heard the familiar scrape of metal on wood. "Octane," he said, but his mind was already buzzing. One recklessly thrown grenade would mean an early bath for his squad and less pretence in front of the cameras. It was such a simple idea, and Tae Joon felt shocked that it hadn't occurred to him to suggest it sooner. Now all he had to do was somehow relay the message to Elliott that-

"Wahoo! Shooting some plonkers!"

Rolling his eyes, Tae Joon grabbed Elliott by the elbow and dragged him down the stairs just in time to see Ramya crawl through the doorway, a downed Octane and Bloodhound already by her feet.

"Witt, a little help?" 

Tae Joon looked over at Elliott for a second before falling to his knees beside Ramya and looking around for a res syringe in his pack. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the impractical boots of Loba appear just beyond the door and he called out to Elliott to be careful as he moved to slam the needle into Ramya's chest.

There was a sudden flickering all around and even though Tae Joon still felt very much like he were made from the solidness of Elliott Witt, there was a strange disorientation descending upon him, a feeling of losing his grounding as both he and Ramya flickered and vanished from sight. 

Of course, much to Tae Joon's annoyance, he had been saved by Elliott in the ring in this manner before, had felt himself become nothing as Elliott protected them both with his cloak and it was... far too fucking much for Tae Joon to really think about once the adrenaline had worn off. That Elliott had this ability, this neat little trick that was so utterly selfless and frankly _cool_ had never sat well with Tae Joon, and he had gone to great lengths not to acknowledge it for the sake of his own ego. 

Suffice to say, liking Elliott was one thing, begrudgingly admitting that he wasn't a terrible person and was actually quite, well, nice to be around, _was one thing_ , but admiration was an ocean Tae Joon had never felt that comfortable putting his feet in. 

And yet, as he watched Loba almost crash shins first into his and Ramya's prone forms as the thief battled on completely unaware of what was happening right beneath her nose, Tae Joon was almost so distracted by what Elliott's tech could do he almost forgot everything else he was supposed to be doing, too. 

Ramya jerked beneath the powerful rush of stimulant from the shot and held out a hand so Tae Joon could pull her to her feet. Her gloved hand closed around his and she almost wrenched his arm off as his mind was still several universes away and he forgot to brace himself. 

"Thanks mate," she said breathlessly as she pulled out a shield battery and got to work. 

"Uh.. you're... yeah, no problem," Tae Joon sputtered.

There was a clunk as Loba's death box fell at his feet.

"Last one," Elliott muttered quietly. 

Tae Joon looked between the box and his own form, at the way he seemed to be a little surer with his back a lot straighter when Elliott was in the driving seat. Tae Joon looked out at Elliott, saw himself standing like a soldier and felt sick. 

-

A little while on, Elliott was having a fucking miserable time. He had pulled out Hyeon's drone and gone spiralling into a full blown panic as the battlefield was obscured from his eyes and instead he saw things from the vertigo inducing angle the drone enjoyed. He'd never felt so exposed, and he had once found himself absolutely bare ass naked in the middle of his bar during karaoke hour. 

He knew that Hyeon would be shadowing him much more closely than any other teammate had ever protected "Crypto" while he was droning in the history of forever, because he had heard the muttered curses under Hyeon's breath more than once when he had come out of drone view to find a frag rolling slowly to a stop in front of him and his teammates nowhere to be seen.

It was still massively contradictory and shook Elliott all the wrong way. Hyeon was so secretive and big into his idea that he didn't trust anyone, and yet here he was, desperately needing others and not to be abandoned just to survive. There was a metaphor or a juxtopositon or something in there, Elliott was certain, but as he felt the whip of a bullet past his temple his was hard pressed to give a shit. 

He collapsed the controls and found himself face to ass with, well, himself. 

"Dude," he complained, but Hyeon neither acknowledged him nor moved. 

"Come on, seriously," he muttered, but then he realised. 

He grinned to himself and got to his feet. 

"Where are you guys?" he muttered into his comms.

"Not far. Check the house to the south if you need light ammo," Hyeon answered in his ear. 

Elliott stepped through the decoy and went to find the rest of his team.

"There you are, Kim. Was about to send out a search party," Ramya said as he walked through the door. 

"Hey I-" Elliott caught himself quickly. "There are no other squads in the area," he said mutely. 

"I'll drink to that," Ramya replied, reloading her Spitfire. "Speaking of which, we win this one and drinks are on me back at Witt's place. By which I mean, they're on you," she said, nudging Tae Joon.

"More for the tab?" Tae Joon said quickly. 

"I'm good for it Witt, quit bellyaching." There was the sound of gunshots in the distance. "Sounds like someone's having a party and they didn't invite Shiela." Ramya tutted and shook her head. "What do you say we do a little gatecrashing?"

"After you, gearhead," Tae Joon said, pointing at the door.

"Oh and he's a gentleman, too," Ramya replied sarcastically. "Better hold on to your heartstrings," she muttered to Elliott. 

"Not a problem," Elliott muttered as they headed out.

-

Neither Ramya nor her turret survived the following gunfight. Tae Joon panicked and sent out a swarm of decoys standing stupidly still in the middle, which was effective for all of two seconds until Revenant shot him full of holes. Elliott tried to EMP an innocent rock and then it was home time for the luckless squad. 

Ramya seemed pretty buoyant despite their defeat once they were all patching themselves up in the med wing, and wasted no time in telling Tae Joon that because they lost, the drinks were on him, or Elliott at least. Then she left with a bounce in her step and between the two of them, Tae Joon and Elliott were feeling pretty pleased with their respective performances.

They were dismissed a lot quicker this time and they were both grateful for the fact. They were both aching and bone sore and tired, and it didn't matter which body they were in because each one desperately wanted sleep. 

They had been sleeping in small doses until this point, napping in each other's rooms with the other present for an hour or so each time, but it was starting to take its toll. Elliott in particular was complaining about missing out on a lot of very important beauty sleep, and even though Tae Joon's own sleeping habits could be described as erratic at best, even he felt close to crashing as the memory of bullets bothered his muscles. 

"Look..." Elliott began awkwardly. "I know you're not... comfortable with me being in your room and that's totally fine, but I need a bed and sleep and, you know, the vast expanse of nothingness for the next eight hours so..."

Tae Joon turned his head away. Elliott was right, he didn't like the idea of him alone unattended, but he couldn't punish Eliott for that either. Still, the memory of Elliott holding Mila's photograph in his hands was still very fresh and made his insides burn with the fact of it. Elliott must have seen it in his face because he quickly changed tack.

"You know what? Doesn't matter. Let's just go back to mine and I'll sleep on the floor or something, you take the bed."

Tae Joon looked at him curiously. "That seems strangely generous, Witt."

"Nope, it seems like it's your spine that's just gonna end up being a loose collection of bones when I wake up, don't you start thinking I'm getting soft."

Tae Joon snorted. "Of course. But you are the one who has to feel it."

"Been feeling it since I climbed into this slouchy shell. Come on, I'm beat."

-

It was dark outside when Tae Joon feeling ridiculously self conscious, pulled back the blankets of Elliott's bed and slipped inside. The soft mattress felt incredible against his aching back however and he soon let go of his awkwardness and allowed himself to relax a little. 

Elliott had taken the couch cushions off and arranged them on the floor. The couch was too small for Tae Joon's long legs, which Elliott had mentioned with something almost like a compliment and Tae Joon had told him to shut up.

He stared at the ceiling and realised he was having a sleepover with Mirage. 

Luckily this particularly troubling thought was jarred from his mind by a shrill beeping. 

Elliott groaned. "Ugh. My phone. Hold on," he complained as he sat up to reach for it. Tae Joon remained where he was but then he suddenly heard Elliott swear.

"Fuck, it's my mom," he lamented.

Tae Joon pushed himself up onto his elbows. "You don't wish to speak to her?" he asked. Elliott made no secret of how much he cared about his mom. It was one of his more endearing features.

"Of course I want to man but _I_ can't!" he said, gesturing wildly at Tae Joon's body.

Tae Joon felt his breath catch in his throat. "Perhaps it would be better to ignore it," he said quickly. 

Elliott shook his head. "What? No. She might need- I mean, if she's having a bad-" Elliott, looking completely distraught, threw the phone to Tae Joon. "Just... be kind. Don't say anything complicated and just... whatever she says, if it seems... weird, just go with it, ok?"

Tae Joon looked at the heartbreak etched on every inch of his own face, at the mildest trace of shame he would hate fiercely until his dying day.

"I... it's... it's ok, Elliott," he said nervously. 

He answered the call and pressed the phone to his ear.

"Hey... Hey mom!" he said, conjuring some spirit from deep within. Tae Joon knew about Elliott's mom and her illness but he was suddenly terrified to actually speak to her and felt sick and ashamed at the thought. "How's it going?" he asked gently.

"Oh, Elliott? I didn't mean to call you. Not that I'm not glad I did," Evelyn replied with a small laugh. 

"It's good to hear from you anyway, mom," Tae Joon continued, while Elliott sat bolt upright in front of him, anxiety lining his face as he watched the conversation like a hawk. 

"While I've got you," Evelyn continued. "Did you hide Ricky's drumsticks? Because I've told you before Elliott he's only going to get you back so much worse."

Tae Joon let out a small breath. "I didn't take them mom, promise," he said gently. He could see Elliott tensing with every word he spoke. 

Evelyn sighed. "Alright honey, I'll let you off this time but if they should happen to turn up you'll make sure he gets them back, yes?"

"Yeah mom, sure thing."

The other end of the line was quiet for a moment.

"Mom?" Tae Joon prompted. 

"Elliott? Is that you? Did you need something?"

"No... no mom, you called-" Tae Joon looked up to see Elliott looking on the verge of tears. "Just wanted to tell you I love you, mom."

"I love you too, my little inch worm."

Tae Joon felt compelled to end the call as quickly as possible, and after ensuring that Evelyn Witt wasn't in any distress he handed the phone back to Elliott with tension crowding his chest. 

"Uh... thanks," Ellott said awkwardly looking down at his hands so he wouldn't have to look at Tae Joon.

"It's alright," Tae Joon replied carefully. There was a pause before he spoke again. "Do you- do you need to-"

Elliott cleared his throat. "Come on. We need to sleep."

-

When Tae Joon finally fell asleep it was after a troubled time inside his own head that was only soothed by his wondering if he really snored, or if it was Elliott inside his body that was making him do it. He'd been so concerned with what Elliott might discover while he was in Tae Joon's body that he hadn't thought about what he might find out about the trickster. He felt an aching sadness inside for the man now, and an almost hateful bitterness at the world that kept knocking him back.

A world Tae Joon was well aware he was a part of in a small way.

Despite falling asleep after Elliott, he woke up before him and decided to assuage his guilt by getting him some breakfast. 

The complex was still and quiet; the sun was yet to make it's way fully above the horizon and Tae Joon was glad of the small mercy. His mind was deeply routed in a dark place and he would have been hard pressed to drag Elliott's attitude out of him before he had his coffee at least.

He listened to the gentle grinding of the beans and completely zoned out. His mind was swimming with words and things he didn't want but he couldn't make them go away. 

He heard footsteps and felt his shoulders bunch up, but when he turned to see Renee standing in front of him he let out a small sigh of relief. 

"Please tell me you have a plan to fix this," he said without preamble.

"Good morning to you too."

Tae Joon bowed his head. "I'm sorry. I just don't know how much more of this I can take."

Renee nodded. "Understandable. Elliott's a lot when you're on _this_ side of it."

"Don't," Tae Joon said, his voice suddenly hard. 

Renee blinked at him. "Everything ok, Hyeon?" she asked shrewdly. 

Tae Joon huffed out a breath. "No," he said shortly. "I didn't mean to snap but... being Elliott is very difficult."

"Well, like I said-"

"No," Tae Joon said again softly. "Not like you said."

-

Elliott woke up confused and alarmed at why he was on his back on the floor.

Again.

Then reason caught up with his senses and he remembered the dismal predicament he was in. Not normal, not by a long shot, but the absurdity was only slightly out of the realm of shit Elliott usually found himself neck deep in. 

He stretched out the stiffness in his joints and looked over to his bed. His heart leapt in panic when he saw that it was empty; he had a background noise of worry when it came to Hyeon walking around in his body, but truth be told he trusted Hyeon with it far more than some of the others. He'd already sent up a silent prayer of thanks to whoever was listening that he hadn't traded off with Octavio instead. 

Groaning as he got to his feet, Elliott felt oddly at a loose end. With the match over Olympus might be more accessible to them now, but his growing concern that their new arrangement might be permanent increased with every hour still spent in the wrong skin. 

He could tell that it was getting to Hyeon as well. His secretive nature was probably being put through the wringer now it would be so easy for Elliott to poke and pry into his life, not that he would ever dream of doing that. Sometimes he might feel like he didn't much like Hyeon, but he wasn't about to go snooping for the sake of their little bickering back and forth.

He walked over to a mirror out of habit more than anything, eyes unfocused and blurry, but it was strange how quickly he had become accustomed to seeing Hyeon's face looking back at him. Not enough that he didn't want his own handsome features back, but he was starting to realise that the view wasn't entirely unpleasant. 

Glancing around furtively, Elliott raised his fingertips to the dark synthetics at his jaw and gently ran them across the place where polymer met skin. He hadn't asked; no one here _ever_ asked because no one wanted to know the answers, but for Elliott, a man whose face was so important, he couldn't stop himself from wondering what had happened to Hyeon to make him undergo so extreme a procedure. 

His fingers moved down from his face to the numerous data drives slung about his neck and Elliott knew that Hyeon had secrets upon secrets, and he thought of a sweet looking girl with her head turned to the side and knew that none of them were good.

The door opened with a clunk and Elliott jumped back from the mirror as if he had been scalded. 

Hyeon raised his eyebrows as he manoeuvred his way into the room carrying two mugs of coffee and a plate of toast, and Elliott stepped forward to help him.

"I told you, so many times, not to touch them," Hyeon said warningly. 

"That you did," Elliott responded, setting one of the mugs down on his desk. "And I wasn't. I was... looking."

"Looking at what?" Tae Joon asked, shutting the door behind him.

Elliott shrugged. "You know, a deep moisturizing facial, maybe some eyeliner, you'd be kinda not hideous."

Tae Joon sighed. "Thank you. Anyway, I saw Renee in the kitchen. She said we can head back down to Olympus tomorrow, and she's fairly certain she knows what to do."

Elliott looked sceptical over the rim of his mug. "Sounds like a different song to the one she was singing before."

Tae Joon nodded slightly. "Yes, but if she thinks she knows a way I'm not eager to argue."

"Right," Elliott agreed. There was silence for a moment as they ate and drank, and then Elliott got to his feet. 

"Ok. Biting the bullet. You need a shower man and so do I so let's just get it over with."

Tae Joon choked on the last of his toast. 

"Together?"

"Sure, why not? You do my back, I'll do yours."

Tae Joon blinked at him. 

"Of course not together, damn. Even if you were my type, this shit is too kinky even for me."

Tae Joon blushed furiously. 

"Stop it. I'm too handsome to look so bashful." He turned to root around in a drawer before tossing Tae Joon a wash bag. "Go. And don't forget to moisturize my elbows."

"Moisturize your own damn elbows," Tae Joon shot back.

"So that's what it's like to be flirted with by me," Elliott mused. "No wonder I'm so popular."

Tae Joon wanted to snipe back, but the words seemed to get lost somewhere along the way.


	5. Chapter 5

While Elliott worried about Hyeon neglecting his dry elbows, he himself totally forgot one of the very first warnings Hyeon had ever given him. He became aware of a soreness on his chest as he blasted Hyeon's body with water that was far too hot, and looked down to see a redness blossoming at the edge of the synthetics. 

Grumbling, Elliott stepped out of the shower and gently dried himself off, patting the inflamed areas softly with the towel. He hissed as his skin stung and flared, and ambled back to his own room to find something to put on the angriest areas. 

"Um... are you lost, Kim?"

Elliott looked over, towel clutched at his waist and his hand on the handle to his room, to see Anita standing before him with her arms folded and her eyebrows raised so high they were practical leaving her face.

"Uh, no?" he said stupidly in Hyeon's voice before his eyes widened and he remembered all over again what had happened. 

Panic the likes of which he hadn't felt since he had fallen out of a portal and come face to face with his own damn face blossomed in his chest like fire. There was no innocent explanation for why Hyeon, _Crypto_ , would be half naked, dripping, and standing outside Elliott's door. 

"Yes..?" he tried.

Anita just continued to stare at him. Elliott took a deep breath.

-

Tae Joon looked up as Elliott walked into his room without knocking. 

"How was your shower? Good? Great. Anita thinks we're fucking." 

Tae Joon was just pulling a fresh t-shirt over Elliott's wet curls and stopped with it half way down Elliott's torso.

"What?" he asked incredulously. 

Elliott slammed himself into Tae Joon's chair and rolled back a few feet. "I panicked, man, I'm sorry. But if you can think of a better reason for you to be half naked outside my room that isn't the truth or... or the thing I said, I wanna hear it."

"And she believed you?" Tae Joon continued, his voice still high and loud. 

Elliott frowned at him. "Hey. You could do a lot worse, Kim," he said pointedly. 

Tae Joon tried to remember who he as talking to. "Don't be stupid, Elliott. I just meant... you? And me? How does that work?"

Elliott leaned back dangerously in the chair. "Well, you see, when handsome, charming genius and a nerd love each other very much-"

"Alright, that's enough," Tae Joon said with a wave of his hand. "People think I would do such a thing?" 

"First of all, this 'thing' has a name. It's Elliott," Elliott muttered with a wink. "Secondly, you might be an uptight whatever you are, but you're still flesh and blood underneath all this. I should know, right?" Elliott suddenly got to his feet. "Oh, that reminds me. Take this."

He tossed Tae Joon a small, plastic pot. "For when we get set right," Elliott explained. 

Tae Joon continued to look questioningly at him. "I don't follow."

"Oh, yeah, that's right," Elliott said sarcastically. "You're one to suffer in silence. Well, screw that. Put that cream on where it hurts when it hurts, thank me later."

Tae Joon turned the pot over in his hands. It was some sort of aloe based cream. "Perhaps you should keep it for now," he said.

Elliott waved a hand. "Got crates of the stuff. Sponsors," he explained. 

Tae Joon looked back down at the lotion. "Thank you," he said.

"I said later," Elliott replied with a smirk. "Probably gonna need it when we get switched back and go through our horrible break up. Then you'll really be hurting."

Tae Joon shook his head. "Are you certain this is the best cover?"

"What? No! It's a fucking _awful_ cover and the best one we have so suck it up, lover boy. Not... not literally... obviously."

Tae Joon looked at himself as Elliott fumbled and blushed and tried to take his words back and it was absolutely surreal. He wasn't going to get used to this, and he was pretty hopeful he would never have to, but he found himself all of a sudden glad that if it had to happen, it had happened with Elliott.

"It was my sister."

Elliott's eyes suddenly opened wide and Tae Joon realised a split second too late that his sudden epiphany had happened silently inside his own head, and as far as Elliott was concerned the last things said out loud concerned innuendo.

"In the photo," he explained solemnly. "It was my sister."

Elliott didn't ask and Tae Joon realised that he didn't have to. Elliott didn't like to talk about his mom's illness and hated to talk about his brothers even more. 

"Man, I'm sorry," Elliott said softly. 

"She's-" Tae Joon wanted to tell Elliott the truth, that he didn't know if Mila was alive or not, safe or lost or anything but he didn't know how. He didn't know how to say any of it because the truth was unclear, and the whole situation was still so dangerous and the knife's edge on which Tae Joon lived everyday. He didn't want to say that he didn't know what to do, because he couldn't stand to hear it. 

"It's... it's alright. I get it."

Elliott had moved forward and had placed a hand on Tae Joon's shoulder. There was a moment of silence between the two men.

"This is a bit weird, isn't it?" Elliott muttered. 

"A bit, yes," Tae Joon replied.

-

As Tae Joon and Elliott walked into the kitchen some hours later, Octane wolf-whistled and slapped his palm against the table. 

Elliott glared at him while Tae Joon had the presence of mind to give him the finger. 

"Anita, you said you wouldn't say anything! You told Octavio?"

Anita was leaning against the counter, nursing a mug of herbal tea. "I didn't tell him," she said with a raised eyebrow. "I told Ajay."

She smiled wolfishly over the rim of her cup. Her eyes flicked to Tae Joon and he could tell she was gauging how Elliott was supposed to feel about this, so he grinned and slapped a hand against his own ass, which was currently a half foot to his left. 

His brain blanked for a minute because life was just way too fucking weird. 

Anita shook her head and walked away. 

"Easy tiger," Elliott muttered under his breath. 

"Don't make this worse than it already is, Witt."

Elliott laughed softly and Tae Joon didn't stop the smile that appeared on his face. 

"Aww, aren't you two sweet? Now move, you're blocking the coffee."

Elliott and Tae Joon quickly moved out of Loba's way. She was still smarting from the last match and it didn't do anyone any favours to antagonize her further. 

Tae Joon felt fingers close around his wrist and he would have tensed in the past but he practically was expecting some sort of tactile interaction from Elliott now. He looked over to see Ajay looking at him strangely.

"A word?" she said, and then dragged him away without waiting for an answer.

Elliott looked over as he was swept from the room but locked as he was inside Tae Joon's body, there wasn't much he could do to stop it.

-

Ajay marched Tae Joon all the way back to her room and then all but threw him into a warm, smothering armchair before she spoke.

"Does nothing I say mean anything to you?" she demanded, hands on her hips. 

Tae Joon looked at her strangely and cocked his head. "I don't-" he began.

Ajay sighed and looked at him like he was the most piteous man she had ever seen. "I tell you you can't make Kim love you, and your first reaction is to go out and screw him?" She fixed him with a sad sort of smile. "Elliott Witt, what am I gonna do with you?"

Tae Joon sighed. He tried to remember that Ajay was more Elliott's friend than she ever was his, and almost fiercely protective of the guy when he looked close to getting himself into more trouble than he could handle. Of course, Ajay often found herself with her own hands full but nonetheless, when the planets aligned or whatever, she definitely had Elliott's back.

And yet, he thought, even though he hated to, it wasn't really her business either.

"You don't really know what's going on, Ajay," he said, trying to be calm and keep his voice kind. 

Ajay snorted. "I was there right at the beginning. I seen the way you two been trying to tear each other new ones before you even knew each other's names. Don't tell me I don't know. And I do know _you_ , Ell," she said softly. She braced her hands on either arm of the chair and crouched down, to Tae Joon's eye level and then below it. "I just don't wanna see you getting hurt."

Tae Joon took a short breath. "I'm a big boy now Ajay, I can handle it."

"Make sure you can." She got to her feet and out a hand to her head. "Is it just screwing? Or is there something going on I don't know about?"

Tae Joon frowned at her and she held up her hands. 

"I'm being nosy. Humour me."

Tae Joon sighed. He couldn't make too big a deal out of it as once they were back to normal they would also have to go through the pretence of breaking up. "It's just... you know, a bit of fun. Stress relief." He tried to think back to what Elliott had said when he had first suggested this stupid plan. "You know how weird and tense things have always been between us. If I didn't fuck him I might have killed him."

Tae Joon could feel the heat building in his chest as he spoke and was certain that Ajay was about to shout at him. Instead she laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. 

"Between you and Tavi I don't know who causes me the most trouble."

"How dare you," Tae Joon replied with a smile. 

"Yeah, ok, it's him," Ajay chuckled. "But still, I didn't mean to- I just... you and Hyeon? Don't think I ever would have seen that one coming."

Tae Joon felt that catch again, the small hiccup in his chest that was becoming all too familiar.

"Yeah, you and me both," he said slowly. 

-

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Elliott was in hell. It was a lot easier to affect Hyeon's air of stoic silence when he was being bombarded with questions he neither wanted to answer and nor did he know how to. 

Octavio was the worst out of the lot having decoded that now he had found something to be a dick about he wasn't going to let it go any time soon.

"You and my boy Elliott, amigo, that is some weird shit," he laughed.

Elliott glared at him. "Elliott is-"

"Elliott's hilarious, yeah, but you? Eh, not so much."

Elliott's glare intensified. "Clearly Elliott sees something which you do not," he said, repeating the mantra of 'you're Hyeon, you're _Hyeon_ ' to keep himself from telling Octavio to turn it sideways and shove it. 

"Elliott? No way," Octavio said, still howling. "You're well, not his type."

"Leave it alone, Tav," Anita said threateningly.

"And how would you know what his type is?" Elliott countered before he could stop himself. "Perhaps you are simply jealous I got there first?"

Anita let out a short, gruff laugh. 

Annoyed, Octavio stepped up his game. "I'm just surprised Elliott doesn't die of boredom is all, you're not exactly a one man party."

"Hey he's-" Elliott stopped himself, partly because he was supposed to be Hyeon but also because he was shocked to feel a sudden rush of defensive anger for Hyeon. Perhaps it was the odd moment of vulnerability and truth he had shared earlier, Elliott didn't know. He just knew it cut him somewhere to hear Octavio be so dismissive of him. 

"It's none of your business, idiot," he growled. As he left the room, he heard the distinct sound of Anita shoving Octavio off his chair behind him.

Normally he would have laughed, but instead he felt strange and odd, but most of all he felt... without Hyeon. 

-

Elliott caught up to Hyeon coming out of Ajay's room. He could only assume she had given him some sort of telling off but that was nothing new. Elliott often found himself on the wrong side of the wrong kind of tongue lashing, and if Hyeon was going to go around looking like him that meant enjoying all the less finer parts of his life.

"You ok? She didn't hurt you too bad, did she?"

Hyeon actually was looking slightly dazed and Elliott began to wonder if his casual comment was a lot more serious than he had intended. 

"Hm? Oh - oh, no, everything is fine... She was warning me, well, you, to stay away from... well, me."

Elliott felt that pull again. "Ajay? Seriously? The fuck - listen man, don't even think about it. Being in your shoes is kinda making me realise how much you put up with and frankly I like you a lot more than some of these other assholes."

Hyeon looked at him strangely. "Are you alright?"

Elliott let out a heavy breath. "I'm fine. I am. I just - forget it. Let's just go find Renee."

Hyeon was still looking at him, and Elliott couldn't quite place the expression but he looked almost worried. 

"Yes, alright," Hyeon agreed.

-

"Oh shit," Elliott muttered as they rendezvoused with Renee in the work shop. 

"What's the matter?" Hyeon asked.

"That's her, 'something is wrong' face," Elliott muttered in reply. 

"Guys, something's wrong," Renee said when she saw them.

"Told ya," Elliott said smugly. 

"What is it?" Taejoon asked, ignoring him.

Renee sighed. "The Phase Runner. Seems we're not the only ones with a vested interest in it."

"The Syndicate?" Tae Joon blurted out before he could stop himself. He caught Elliott's glance but just held Renee's gaze. 

"No," she said, seeming not to have noticed. "It's Mary."

"Mary?" Elliott asked. "Why would she-"

"I don't know," Renee replied, cutting him off. "I just know she's been looking into it, messing with it maybe," she said darkly. 

"What do we do?" Tae Joon asked. 

Renee shrugged. "Not sure. Don't know how to tell her to back off, she's... something tells me that she won't go quietly."

"It's her son," Elliott said. Tae Joon and Renee looked at him curiously. 

"Seriously, come on guys. We've all got our shit but would it kill you to listen? She's looking for a way back to him."

"And by back you mean..?"

"Way back," Elliott explained. "Like a hundred years or so, give or take. Honestly, I wouldn't want to tell her to back down."

Tae Joon raised his eyebrows.

"Don't get me wrong," Elliott continued. "I'm not thrilled with the idea of being you longer than I have to but if someone has first dibs well... it's her."

"So we tell her," Tae Joon muttered. "Tell her the truth. I may not know her well but she does not seem unkind. Perhaps she will understand."

"Perhaps," Renee said gently. "But this is her son. People can be weird about their kids."

Elliott frowned at her. "Not weird. She's just being a mom."

Tae Joon really would have had to be an idiot not to catch the sadness in Elliott's tone.

"Losing a child makes people... it's not good is what I'm saying."

Renee looked at Elliott with sympathy but it was Tae Joon who laid a hand against the crook of his elbow. 

-

They decided to speak to Mary in the morning. Time kept rolling on and it was getting late again.

"I suppose we should..." Elliott began gently. His mind was a whirlwind. He wanted to just say that they should go to bed, but his mind would not stop telling him to tack the word 'together' on to the end. He didn't want to do anything weird, he just didn't, but at some point Elliott had realised that no matter what body Hyeon was walking around in, all he could see was him.

"Right," Hyeon said, his voice wary. "Your... Your room or...?"

Elliott sighed. He'd never really been one for good timing anyway but he knew that right now was really not the the best. 

"I'll sort out the couch," he said.

"No," Hyeon said quickly. "You take my bed, it's only fair."

"But I thought-"

"It's alright. It seems stupid not to trust you when I've been forced to trust you with my own body. I know you won't try to pry, I do."

"I won't, and hey. You take mine. It's good for your posture."

Hyeon looked grateful, but also slightly scared. "And if your mom calls again?"

Elliott had never meant anything more than when he looked at him and said, "It's ok, I trust you too."


	6. Chapter 6

Under the certainty that Elliott would just climb into his bed and sleep, Tae Joon found himself overwhelmed with curiosity. Elliott was essentially an open book, he wore his tradgedy on his sleeve right next to his heart but it was strange. Tae Joon knew full well now that Elliott saw himself as two people. He ruminated on the nuance of the man, the need to distract people with decoys and illusions because heaven forbid anyone ever look too closely. Tae Joon found himself wanting to look, to see and understand and have it all. He suddenly wanted to know every inch of Elliott, a strange predilection as physically he was, to the last hair, Elliott. Being in his body was so far from understanding his mind, however, and even as Tae Joon pulled a sleeping shirt over the taught muscles of Elliott's abdomen, he found he couldn't notice it much at all.

He was aware that Elliott was attractive. He had always been aware, just as night followed day, but knowing a thing and caring about it weren't the same. He had never desired Elliott, but right now, here, surrounded by whatever small piece of the world Elliott had carved out and called his own, he desired something else. Something... unsettling. Because if he was hard pressed, if someone held a knife to his throat and told him to tell all his secrets, he didn't know which he he would say first, only that this blossoming love for Elliott was one of them.

Elliott Witt, this strange thorn in his side, had become another secret he carried in his heart.

He looked around the room, took in the posters and the awards and the general shrine to Mirage and wondered where Elliott stood inside it all. Did he even know that without all the gadgets and the decoys and whatever else he thought made him matter he still _did_ , because Elliott was remarkable in a way that made Tae Joon ache. Walking a mile in his shoes had lead to something, created something terrifying, and Tae Joon could not fall asleep, because out of everything in this fucking room it was the family photograph, the dog tags belonging to "R. Witt" at the bottom of a drawer and every other stupid humanizing thing that kept him awake to an hour when Elliott would surely be furious at him. 

-

Elliott wasn't quite so troubled. Crushes were something that came and went like clockwork for him, and to have found himself developing a slightly odd one on Hyeon wasn't really cause for concern. Truth be told even before the whole body swap mess he'd always had this weird little affection for the man, carried this tiny flame that was barely more than a spark, which was good because it kept him warm instead of burning him. Hyeon was smart and attractive and he had his funny moments, while being just enough of a pain in the ass to keep Elliott from falling all the way in. 

Being completely surrounded by him, in his body, in his room, in his bed though, that wasn't exactly minimum safe distance. Elliott wasn't scared to have an interest in Hyeon as long as it didn't get too serious. The last thing he needed was to be pining after Hyeon, especially if it seemed as though he would have to make the most surface of pretences that they were an item. He closed his eyes and rolled over, because he was finding it hard to fall asleep with his back to the door for some reason.

-

Tae Joon woke up once again before sunrise but this time instead of heading for the kitchen he made his way to his own room. He absolutely did trust Elliott, no really, but he wasn't about to give up a hard learned lesson of paranoia for a _cute boy_ , for heaven's sake. 

He knocked softly on the door after checking the coast was clear. They might have had an alibi but it was also a lie that required effort to maintain and Tae Joon just really couldn't be bothered. 

Elliott didn't answer the door straightaway and nor did Tae Joon expect him to. It was only a matter of being respectful of the fact that Elliott may not be decent, but then Tae Joon remembered it was his body on the other side of the door and walked in.

Elliott was flat on his back on the bed, mouth hanging open and a small line of drool making it's way down to Tae Joon's pillow. Tae Joon huffed and shook his head before sitting down at his desk as quietly as possible.

He was desperate to check in with his usual sources. With everything that had happened, he hadn't found the time to do all the usual secret little things he did to further his goals. 

And yet, even as he typed in the codes to give him access to his own secure sever, he found himself instead typing the name "Dr. Mary Somers" into a search engine.

Even as he skimmed over the information that was given to him, Tae Joon found it harder and harder to ignore the niggling worry in the back of his mind. More than once he found himself turning in his chair to look at Elliott's prone form. He didn't know, and that was the kicker. 

He didn't know how much danger he was in.

Tae Joon sighed and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Being Elliott was exhausting, he had never known before just how much each day was a struggle of trying to do right by everyone, of being held to such high standards all the time. He wanted to be able to shout and swear and tell them all to fuck off and leave him alone, but Elliott needed people like he never did, and he would not break that while he was so responsible for the man. That Elliott was always spinning so many plates, so careful where he put his feet lest they end up in his mouth... Tae Joon could not ever live like that. People either liked him or they didn't, he didn't care. Elliott was running out of things to hold dear at a rate that would have shaken anyone, it was no wonder he held on so tightly to the paltry scraps he had left.

Whatever the hell happened next, Tae Joon was almost feral in his need to let Elliott know that he was enough, warts and all. 

And that was something else, really. Elliott was supposed to be the stupid fucker he joked around with, the idiot who traded barbs with him and made him more than nothing.

He looked over to Elliott one last time.

"Fuck," he muttered, because what else is there to say when you realise you're in love?

-

Elliott awoke to the smell of coffee and a stare of such intensity from Hyeon he was certain it could strip the flesh from his bones. 

"What's... what's up, man?" he muttered sleepily. 

"We need to talk," Hyeon said solemnly. "Drink that." He gestured at the mug of coffee on his night stand.

Elliott pushed himself up and blearily reached for the cup. "Is everything... are you ok?"

Hyeon shook his head. "It is not me you need to worry about."

"Hyeon?"

Hyeon was looking at him so strangely, and Elliott felt almost compelled to tell him not to say whatever it was he was about to.

But he didn't.

He just sipped his coffee and waited.

Hyeon took a breath. And then he told him everything.

All of it.

The truth.

And it culminated in the fact that every second Elliott spent in his body was another moment spent with a target on his back. Elliott was in danger, and Hyeon, _Tae Joon_ , could no longer make peace with that fact. 

Elliott took a deep breath before making a confession of his own.

"I... I know. I mean, I knew. Sort of."

Tae Joon looked at him with disbelief. "How could you possibly..."

"Fucking posters man. Wanted posters. All over my bar. Take away the specs, add on all this shit," he said pointing to the facial synthetics, "and it's you. I'm not as dumb as you think I am."

Tae Joon looked at him. "I don't- really?"

"Really fucking really," Elliott said tiredly.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

Elliott actually laughed. "Look around you man. No one fucking _says_ anything. We're not here because life's a beach. Look too hard and you're only gonna see shit you don't wanna see."

Tae Joon tilted his head to his shoulder. "But you-"

"Me? I'm a narcisstic bastard who hides how smart he is because I'm certain that people don't like to think that I can be such a dumbass and a genius at the same time. And I'm right," Elliott grumbled. "Long story short, making a living killing other folks, even if it's all a bit non-lethal and purely for entertainment, is far from the actions of angels who have both feet on the ground. I had a choice; be a fuck up or be a fuck up with enough cash to take care of his ailing mom, and you know which one I chose." He sighed and pulled the covers back. "For what it's worth, I know it's bullshit. What they say you did? You'd never even-" Elliott sighed. "I knew, but I didn't care. Hate me if you're gonna but that's the truth. I'm sorry you've been put through so much shit but at the end of the day it was _your _shit, and therefore not my problem."__

__He looked at Tae Joon with an almost defiant anger in his eyes. "I got enough shit of my own."_ _

__Tae Joon looked down at his hands. There was still one thing pressing against him, sparking his anger and he needed to say it._ _

__"You know who I am. What they've done. How can you still go out there and be... Mirage? How can you live alongside what you know to be true?"_ _

__Elliott reached out laid a hand against his arm and sighed. "Because you get it," he said. "Given the choice, against everything else, if it was up to you, if it was _your_ mom, wouldn't you fall in line too?"_ _

__And Tae Joon didn't answer him, because he knew Elliott was right._ _

__-_ _

__They cornered Mary in the workshop. A brief discussion between the two of them had ended with them both agreeing to go in hard and fast with the truth._ _

__"Ach, hold on. So you're him and he's you?"_ _

__"Pretty much, yeah," Elliott said._ _

__"That's one hell of a pickle, boys," Mary said softly. "But what's it got to do with me?"_ _

__Tae Joon looked over at Elliott. For all he wanted to argue the contrary, Elliott's reputation for being a smooth talker was well earned, whereas he himself had always lacked a little in the one to one experience._ _

__"If it were up to me, nothing," Elliott said. "But we both wanna tinker with the Phase Runner and we know how much more important your cause is. Thing is, it might be the only thing that has a chance of fixing us."_ _

__Mary tapped her fingers against her palm. "What do you mean?" she asked, but it wasn't curiosity. It was an accusation._ _

__Elliott stepped closer to her, his face a soft expression of understanding. "Hyeon and I... we know, ok? We know what you're trying to achieve but we're just hoping that when you do you'll throw a bone our way. Tell us what you've learned in the hope it goes some way to sorting this mess out."_ _

__Mary took a small step back. "Alright," she said softly. "But you know I'm not gonna let anything stand between me and getting home to my boy."_ _

__Elliott smiled. "Maybe we can help. This nerd here? Got all kinds of knowledge about tricky computer workings. We want to help you yeah, to help ourselves, but..." Elliott looked down to the ground. "We also wanna help you get home."_ _

__"Liar," Mary replied with a sly smile._ _

__"No," Elliott said heavily. "Not this time."_ _

__-_ _

__Elliott excused himself from the technical talk that followed. It was not his area of expertise and he knew he would only be a hindrance._ _

__"As best as I can tell, it's like a program," Mary said as Tae Joon tapped away on his laptop. "Not as unruly as black holes but they have a few things in common. Only difference is that a black hole is a black hole no matter how much you shout at it not to be. The void though... the void listens."_ _

__"Listens to what?"_ _

__Mary shrugged. "Instructions? All you have to do is find the right command and it's more than likely to behave. It's going in willy nilly that ends up with people in the wrong bodies."_ _

__"What are you saying?"_ _

__"I'm saying that the void is malleable, my little barm cake. It can be told what to do, and how to do it. Even if it doesn't like it. Whatever the case, this tech is the key to getting me back to my Newton, all I have to do is find the right string of numbers."_ _

__"Do you even know where to look?"_ _

__Mary chuckled. "That I do, pet. You see, when it comes to time travel there's a unique set of rules. Doing a thing makes the thing possible before you've even done it."_ _

__Tae Joon looked up from his screen._ _

__"Meaning..?"_ _

__"Meaning I know I'm getting home because I already told myself I was going to," Mary explained shortly. "It's a wild ride, having my future self exist in the past, but if you can get your head around it, it makes sense."_ _

__Tae Joon furrowed his brow. "You already know you will succeed," he said gently. "That's... that is good."_ _

__"It's fantastic darling, but it's not... stable either. Logic tells me that helping you now will only lead to my future but it's such a fragile thing. Time is so twitchy like that."_ _

__"And yet ideally helping Elliott and I will help you?"_ _

__Mary clucked her tongue. "Well, I _am_ helping you, aren't I?"_ _

__-_ _

__Tae Joon filled Elliott in on everything that had transpired during his meeting with Mary. Elliott seemed distracted throughout, to the point where it was irritating Tae Joon._ _

__"Do you have something else more important to attend to?" he asked pointedly._ _

__Elliott's eyes refocused. "What? No... no man, sorry. Just got lost in my head for a minute."_ _

__Elliott paused as if for all intents and purposes he was waiting for The Joon to latch on to his last comment and use it to insult him with._ _

__Tae Joon remained silent._ _

__"How did it go with Mary?" Elliott finally asked._ _

__Tae Joon sighed. "I already said," he complained._ _

__"Yeah, and I already admitted I wasn't listening. Sorry. It's just- Forget it."_ _

__Tae Joon could see a line of worry on his brow that he knew all too well._ _

__"What?"_ _

__Elliott looked almost sheepish. "It's just that after all this, if- if everything goes right and we end up back how we're supposed to be, you're still gonna be... you."_ _

__Tae Joon wasn't quite sure what Elliott was getting at. It almost sounded like a set up for another insult, but the tone was all wrong._ _

__"That is how I prefer to be, Elliott. Not that I'm saying being you is terrible. It is, I am just not saying it." He tried to smile, to try and break a little of the tension but it didn't seem to be working._ _

__"Not sure how you can be so blase about everything that's happened to you, that's _still_ happening to you. You're safer now in my body than you've been in years. It's not right." Elliott looked at him. "I don't want anything to happen to you, ok?" Elliott seemed almost angry. _ _

__"Nothing has yet," he said._ _

__"That's not-"_ _

__"I know."_ _

__-_ _

__Their plans to head down to Olympus now properly scuppered by Mary telling them she wasn't ready yet, Tae Joon and Elliott faced another night of awkwardness. Now that Elliott knew the truth, it wasn't so hard for Tae Joon to let him loose in his room, but after their earlier conversations both men were working with an edge of sadness and Tae Joon could tell Elliott was trying his best not to show that he didn't want to be alone._ _

__"Stay in my room tonight," he said gruffly as Elliott ummed and ahhed his way through trying to ask. "It's been a very strange few days and I think we won't be disturbed if people think we are... well-"_ _

__"Fucking?"_ _

__"Yes, thank you," Tae Joon replied sarcastically._ _

__They scavenged some food from the kitchens and made their way to Tae Joon's room before they had to face any sideways glances or behind the hands chuckles._ _

__-_ _

__Bloodhound. Oh, poor Bloodhound. All they had wanted to do was to visit Hyeon and ask him if there was any way to improve their tracker. They had heard nothing but good things about the hacker's technological skills, and just wondered idly if there was a way to kick their gear up a notch._ _

__They made their way to Hyeon's room and paused with their fist curled in the act of knocking when they heard voices._ _

__"You have to go in hard, Elliott. It's no good if you're being shy."_ _

__"I'm as hard as I can be man! You want me to go in half-cocked and end this early for both us?"_ _

__Bloodhound had heard the rumours, knew that there was something going on between the two, but even as they turned away they could not help but be privy to more than they ever wanted._ _

__"Oh... shit, I can't... I'm gonna go down!"_ _

__"Not yet! I'm not ready. Just... hold on. Let me get in a better position."_ _

__"Get behind me," Elliott said firmly as Bloodhound suddenly found themselves wishing their senses were not so highly attuned._ _

__"Alright, ok I'm... Oh, fuck. Elliott, here!"_ _

__"What?"_ _

__"Right here! Make sure your shot lands here!"_ _

__"There? My aim' s not great and if I mess this up it's gonna be sticky for the both of us!"_ _

__"It doesn't... I can't hold out much longer... do it!"_ _

__"Alright... ok..."_ _

__"Elliott, Now! I need you here!"_ _

__"I'm coming man! I'm coming!"_ _

__Bloodhound fled as fast as their feet would carry them._ _

__On the screen, Elliott's Spartan finally went down to a hail of Needler fire._ _

__"Fuck. I'm down," he muttered angrily._ _

__Tae Joon's own avatar took the full brunt of a DMR. "We got pinched," he muttered._ _

__Elliott glanced around. "Say, did you hear something?"_ _

__"No," Tae Joon replied finally looking away from their game of Halo. "Pay attention, we're about to respawn."_ _

__-_ _

__Games over for the night, Elliott began to feel his tiredness creeping up on him. He crawled into Tae Joon's bed and sighed as the hacker tired to make room for Elliott's large frame on the couch._ _

__He sighed at the ceiling and bit the bullet._ _

__"Fuck's sake man, we're sharing bodies. It ain't much worse to share a bed. Get my ass in here."_ _

__Tae Joon was wary. "Is that.... I don't know if that is the best-"_ _

__"Just fucking do it man, I'm too tired to argue with you and I'm scared for my bone structure."_ _

__Tae Joon sighed and slipped into the bed beside Elliott. There was all the room in the world between them and yet he was so hyper aware of how close they were it was all he could do to steady his breathing._ _

__He glanced nervously as the door._ _

__"Hey," Elliott said warmly. "Think of it this way. If anything dodgy goes down, I'm right here to watch your back."_ _

__"Hmm," Tae Joon said, not entirely convinced._ _

__Elliott sighed. "Gonna be fun. Sleeping with me."_ _

__"Shut up Witt."_ _

__Elliott laughed. "Sweet dreams you asshole."_ _

__"Yes," Tae Joon said with a yawn. "And you."_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With undying gratitude to chini and Zavijah, who not only leant me their headcanons but let me run wild with them. Credit to Zavijah for the posters idea, and chini for these two dorks playing video games. You guys are the best.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heh, yeah, this used to be a funny story.

Elliott lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. This had seemed like such a good idea at the time, the most obvious solution to their problem, the easiest way to make sure they got the best nights sleep and for Tae Joon, Elliott knew that no matter what he might have said, he still wasn't comfortable leaving Elliott alone in his room at night. 

He could hear Tae Joon's soft, calm breathing. Oddly it seemed as though he was the one who was more relaxed. He seemed the most at ease Elliott had seen him since he had arrived in Elliott's body, although a large part of that could probably be chalked up to the fact that he was unconscious.

Elliott turned to look at him, feeling strangely creepy. There was a good half foot of space between them, but Tae Joon was laying on his side, facing Elliott and seeming a lot closer. 

It was so strange. It was _his_ face. He knew the face so well. He had spent more time than was healthy looking at it. Studying it. Judging it for all the ways it wasn't perfect. And yet... he _felt_ Tae Joon beside him, a realisation that made his stomach churn with the implications. He didn't know what had happened, and while he assumed that what they had been through was enough to form some sort of bizarre bond, he wasn't quite sure when he had started being so aware of the hacker. He thought back to the day when this nonsense had begun, to the time before the portal, Tae Joon and him, crouching behind a rock and talking like they were... what? Friends? There were a lot of harsh words between them for friends. 

Elliott remembered further back, the slight nods to one another when they passed in the halls, the amiable silence in which they worked side by side on their gear. After everything he had told him, Elliott knew that he had been right, that there was something more to this quirky nerd than general disdain and yet... 

The strangest part was that even though Tae Joon had told him his secret, Elliott didn't think that was what he had been seeing. 

He sighed and turned away. This was too weird, even for him, and Elliott spent most of his days looking at copies of himself. He rolled over and faced the door. 

-

Tae Joon's eyes snapped open as Elliott turned his back to him. He felt far too freaked out to sleep, even though he too had thought it a good idea that they share.

It was just a bed, a regular bed, no whips or chains or rubber ducks, and it was just Elliott, in _his_ body, of all things, and that really didn't press any of his buttons. 

He wasn't sure how sharing a bed with his friend was just a nerve-wracking and terrifying as breaking into the labs beneath the Canyon had been, but he felt the ache in his chest all the same.

-

At some point in the night, both men had fallen asleep eventually. Tae Joon was still a light sleeper though, waking up in fits and bursts. It had started to rain heavily at some point, and the drops on the window cast speckled shadows across the bed as they were illuminated by the orange glow of the lights outside. Elliott had turned back to face him, one arm tucked beneath his head as he snored softly.

Tae Joon was warm, and calm, and _safe_.

He felt something cool against his fingertips and looked down.

In the dim light, he could see Elliott's hand, fingers reaching out and lightly brushing his own.

He felt his muscles twitch, as if to draw back his hand like a startled animal, and saw a ghost of worry cross his own features in the dark.

Feeling more afraid than he had in a while, Tae Joon carefully curled his fingers and drew Elliott's into his grasp. 

He waited, eyes closed and heart pounding in his chest, his breath held until, ever so gently, Elliott's grip tightened in response.

He quietly let his breath fall from his lips, keeping his eyes closed as he moved his hand closer, threading their fingers together until there was no doubt about what he was doing, what _they_ were doing. Elliott's fingers were right against his own, his own breath now audible as they inched closer together, enough to feel the warmth of the other's body. Tae Joon still did not open his eyes, did not let himself think about what would happen in the morning, and he eventually fell asleep in the knowledge that it would always be so much easier to do so if he could hold Elliott's hand in his own. 

-

In the morning, however, the chance for awkwardness was put on hold when both men were harshly jolted awake by a shrill alarm coming from Tae Joon's computer.

Tae Joon rocketed out of his bed like he had been shot, eliciting a feral hiss from his cat who had been curled up and sleeping soundly between the feet of the two men.

Elliott let out a small shout and sat bolt upright, struggling to escape the bed sheets that had tangled at his waist at some point during the night. 

"Whass-- what's going on," he murmured.

Tae Joon was already hurriedly tapping away at his laptop, shutting the alarm down quickly as Elliott fell gracefully out of bed made the floor shake.

"Careful," Tae Joon growled, waving one hand impatiently while his eyes scanned the screen. Elliott got to his feet and limped over to him.

"Shut up," Elliott complained, rubbing a hand against his sore hip. "Is... is something wrong?"

Tae Joon was still frantic but he seemed focused instead of scared which was at least of some comfort.

"It was only an alert," Tae Joon said eventually, straightening up to face him. "It is nothing to worry about."

Elliott frowned. "Well, consider me alerted. Coffee?"

"Yes... please," Tae Joon muttered, looking back at his screen as he pulled out the chair and sat down properly. Sensing that he may have lost him for the morning, Elliott shrugged and made his way down to the kitchen.

-

Makoa was frying something that smelled really good as he walked it, while Mary was pouring cornflakes into a bowl and staring into space. A few tinkled over the rim and scattered on the counter. 

"Mary?" Elliott said. 

She blinked a few times and shook her head. "Oh! Morning Hyeon," she said slyly, giving him a little wink.

Elliott looked over at Makoa. "Wow, you're really bad at that," he said in a low voice.

Mary laughed. "Guess I'll stick to science," she replied in a murmur.

Makoa turned around. "Hey, morning Hyeon. Got a grilled cheese here if you're hungry."

Elliott was very keen to say yes but Tae Joon's warning about how any sort of dairy would end with him losing half a day in the bathroom made him say no. 

"I'm fine," he said wistfully. 

-

He returned to Taejoon's room with coffee and bagels and was greeted by an empty space. After a quick search turned up nothing, Elliott placed their breakfast down on Tae Joon's desk and at down to wait.

His attention was caught by the glow of the laptop. 

Sipping his coffee, Elliott began to glance through the information on the screen. After all of his promises that he wouldn't go snooping he found his eyes moving without permission, but if Tae Joon hadn't wanted him to see it surely he would have cleared the screen before be left. 

His eyes widened as they travelled down the page and panic began to settle in his chest. 

Maybe he'd left if there as a warning instead. A cry for help.

It was a news article, only a day old. 

_**PARK SPOTTED ON SOLACE?** _

_Possible sightings of the wanted fugitive, Tae Joon Park, have been reported on the planet of Solace. Park, wanted for questioning in the murder of Mila Alexander, has been on the run from authorities on Gaea for almost three years. Reports are coming in from Solace City, and the Gaeaen Police Force would like to remind people at this time that Park should be considered armed and highly dangerous._

Elliott didn't even bother with the rest of the article. "Tae," he whispered, and bolted from the room.

He collided almost headfirst with Bloodhound, who, despite their mask, was still not quite meeting Elliott's eye for some reason.

"Blood, great, have you seen T-, uh, Elliott? I need to find him, it's kind of urgent," he babbled quickly.

Bloodhound seemed to suppress a strange cough. "Ur- urgent?"

"Yeah, it's- what?"

Bloodhound shook their head. "Not important. I believe I saw him headed towards his own room not long ago."

"Great, thanks," Elliott said quickly.

"The Allfather blesses your... union," Bloodhound said gently.

Momentarily confused, Elliott stopped before he even started heading away, then he remembered everyone thought they were together. He felt a strange tingle in his fingers.

"Yeah, awesome," he said, before sprinting away."

Elliott was certain now that Bloohound would be on to them. In his panic he hadn't even tried to affect Tae Joon's mannerisms. It didn't matter at all now though, he thought, as he burst through the door to his room.

"Tae! Tae, are you in here?" he called frantically. 

He almost collided with his own back this time.

Tae Joon turned around quickly. "Elliott what's wrong?" he asked, alarmed.

"Oh thank god, there you are, I went back to your room and there was this article on the screen and you were gone and - and - and what the _fuck_ is that on my face?"

Tae Joon raised a cream covered eyebrow.

"I thought you said this one for your forehead?" he asked, holding up a pot of cream.

Elliott sighed, both in relief and exasperation and strode forward.

"That's for feet, you idiot," he said. His heart was still hammering against his ribs and his rage was a little bit too much so he tried to call down.

"Why the fuck would you leave that up on your screen and then disappear without a word?" 

He failed.

Tae Joon looked at at him, and Elliott felt his rage vanishing by the second as this stupid moron with a face full off foot cream stood in front of him. 

"I... that is most unlike me, I don't know why I left the... I just thought that you would come here because you knew I had to do all of this - this stuff." He turned back to Elliott's dresser and picked up a shocking pink tube. "This one?"

Elliott frowned. "Only if you want to take my eyebrows clean off. Come here."

He wiped off the foot cream with a face cloth and passed Tae Joon the correct pot. 

"I thought this one was for hands?"

"Just trust me?"

Elliott watched as Tae Joon used far too much product and then spent ages trying to rub it in. He couldn't stop his mind from racing. The fear he had felt, heart shattering, stomach dropping horror of finding him gone lingered around him like a mist. It infected every inch of him, got between his teeth and under his skin. He couldn't stop thinking about it. About how one day it might be more serious that his beauty regime. 

How did Tae Joon live like that? Knowing that any moment could be his last, that one day he might wake up to a message on his computer telling him that he was going to die? This man, this man who was being chased and hounded, whose head was on a chopping block all the time was stood before him, rubbing cream into the crease in Elliott's brow. How?

And when this was fixed, when this weirdness was all over, how was Elliott supposed to go on knowing what he knew? Knowing that one day he might be messing around with Tae Joon, making fun of him, playing pranks, (falling asleep holding his hand), and the next day he could wake up Tae Joon would just be... gone?

He looked around his room and felt stupid. Felt wretched and wrong and bad. Sure, mom was sick and the games kept her in the better kind of meds, but at the end of the line they both knew there was no fixing what was wrong with Evelyn Witt. They were delaying the inevitable, and Elliott would fucking keep on delaying it for as long as he was able because he mom deserved every second of life and every precious memory she could hold on to, but Elliott was becoming more and more aware that the money he handed over was covered in blood. 

"Tae... I'm... I've been here a while," he began gently. He wasn't quite sure how to broach the subject, but he just couldn't do nothing anymore. 

"What do you mean?" Tae Joon asked distractedly as the pot slipped from his greasy fingers and clattered on to the floor. "Fuck."

" _What?_ " Elliott asked, suddenly pulled from his maudlin thoughts. 

"Sorry, go on," Tae Joon muttered. 

Elliott shifted on his bed, thrown off his stride. "I'm... just saying. What if we didn't... I mean, a lot if people know me, expect to see me and you know... let me get away with shit they maybe shouldn't because of who I am."

"I don't see your point," Tae Joon grumbled as he started pulling at Elliott's curls almost as if he were trying to neaten them.

Elliott let out a short breath. "Ok," he said quietly. "What if we didn't switch back?"

Tae Joon was still preening in Elliott's mirror, but he froze and turned around. 

"I still don't see it," Tae Joon said slowly. "But I'm starting to think you're losing it. You cannot remain in my body, you don't even want to."

Elliott stood up. "This isn't about me," he said. He looked at Tae Joon. "This is about you. Surviving this. Getting out."

"I can do those things in my own body."

"But they'll be easier in mine. That article-"

Tae Joon waved a hand. "It's nothing. Nothing to do with me at least, a red herring."

"Yeah, for now. One day it might not be." Elliott looked down at the space between them. "I can't let you live like that when there's a way you might not have to."

He reached out and brushed his fingertips against Tae Joon's before dropping his hand away. A reminder that hit Tae Joon just as it was intended. 

"Elliott, thank you. But this is not your fight and I will not drag you into it."

He took a definite step back. "Which one is for the bags under your eyes?"

Elliott sighed. "I don't have bags," he muttered, but he was just going through the motions because his concern for Tae Joon was taking over everything in his life. 

-

Renee stood before the roaring expanse of the Phase Runner, glaring into its swirling depths with a ferocity deep in her eyes. 

"Fuck you," she muttered, flipping it off.

"Less of that, dear," Mary admonished her as she tapped away on a panel that Tae Joon had hooked up to the main controls beneath it. 

Renee sighed. "Sorry. Just- this is what void tech is. Helps some, destroys others. And it's so random. I'm glad it helped you - will help you, but I don't know what it's going to do to these two."

Tae Joon looked over at Elliott. He was sitting on the steps that lead up to the Runner. He felt a gentle hand against his back. 

"I'll do my best to make sure he comes to no harm, dearie," Mary said gently. Tae Joon was almost certain that she was referring to his body, but the twinkle in Mary's eye told him that she was saying less than she knew.

"Thank you," he said softly. 

"What's the plan, Sommers?" Renee asked, walking over. 

Mary chuckled. "I'm just waiting for the right info to come through. The exact ones and zeroes I need to get these two gentlemen back where they belong."

Renee nodded. "And where's the info coming from?"

Tae Joon looked up from the panel once more. "Unless I'm mistaken, Dr. Sommers believes the information is coming from her."

"More time travel stuff?" Elliott called from the stairs. 

"That's right Elliott," Mary said with a coy smile. 

"This could go really wrong you know," Elliott continued, getting to his feet. He had been silent for much longer than any of them were used to, but Tae Joon was starting to develop suspicions he desperately hoped were unfounded. "I mean, just cause it's worked out for you doesn't mean Hyeon and I won't get killed in the process."

"Elliott... if that were true I wouldn't be doing this and you know it." Mary looked at Elliott sternly. No one had to say out loud what they all knew was the truth. She was desperate to get back to her son, almost reckless with it, but the cost of Elliott and Tae Joon's lives was just too high to pay.

Elliott rolled his shoulders. "We're going in completely blind though. Hyeon, come on, you of all people should have a problem with that. Aren't you the one who's 'always prepared' or some shit?"

Tae Joon scowled and looked between Renee and Mary before dragging Elliott down into the small runway beneath the Phase Runner. 

"I know what you're doing Elliott. Stop it. I'm never going to think it's a good idea."

"It doesn't have to be a good idea," Elliott spat back. "It just has to better than the stupid shit you've been pulling since you got here." He poked Tae Joon in the shoulder. "Everything was sort of... unclear, but when you explained it, all of it, right up to the fact that you think letting these fuckers control your every move in the arena and maybe getting yourself killed might bring your sister back, I realised how stupid it was. How dangerous. Now you've got an opportunity right here to get it right, to win, and you're a fucking idiot not to take it."

Tae Joon pushed Elliott back. "Do you know how stupid you sound? How much of a martyr? I would never, _never_ ask this of anyone, especially not you!"

"And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?" Elliott said, his voice angrier than he had ever heard it.

Tae Joon grabbed him by the front of his shirt and slammed him against the metal walls. "Just stop being an idiot," he hissed.

Elliott didn't seem bothered by Tae Joon's actions at all. "Second time you've done this. Either you're just a violent bastard or you really don't like having to look at yourself."

Tae Joon let go of Elliott's shirt. "Fuck you," he said in a low voice. "We are getting put right and if you think talking to me like that is going to change my mind, you're wrong."

Tae Joon turned to walk away but Elliott reached out and turned him back to face him. "That wasn't... fuck, I am so sorry Tae, I shouldn't have said that but-"

Tae Joon relented a little. "Elliott, I will not take your life from you just to reach my own goals," he said softly. 

Elliott looked down at the ground. "You might as well."

Tae Joon felt so angry and frustrated all at once. "Why would you ever say that? You have people who care about you, your mom-"

"My mom barely even remembers who I am anymore," Elliott said. "And my friends... maybe they'll like Elliott better when he's you."

Tae Joon had had enough. "Just stop it, do you even realise how ridiculous you sound? Things are far too dangerous and important for you to have a pity party so snap out of it Witt. I... I want you back, ok? I do. I don't like you like this, you cannot be me just as much as I cannot be you."

He took a deep breath.

"No one else can be you."

There was such a thick tension between them, a by product of Elliott's anger and Tae Joon's sadness and whatever the hell was building between them to make those things matter.

"Come on boys, Runner's all warmed and ready to go!" Mary yelled down the concourse. 

"I'm really sorry Tae... I didn't mean... I was just trying to-"

"I know what you were doing, but I won't let you. I couldn't. Come on, let's go sort this out."


	8. Chapter 8

"Good luck," Elliott said. He was feeling stupid and embarrassed at his earlier outburst, but the fact remained that he and Tae Joon were about to jump once again into the unknown and the only thing they had on their side was hope.

"It will be fine," Tae Joon lied. He didn't know if it would be fine or not, and though he knew he should perhaps be angry at Elliott all he felt was sadness and a strange sense of gratitude. He would never have gone through with Elliott's idea, but the fact that Elliott was willing to let go of everything he had, to put himself in the kind of danger Tae Joon lived though each day, was both overwhelming and heartbreaking. 

They both stood before the whirling portal, taking deep breaths to steady themselves. Tae Joon looked over at Elliott in his own body for what he hoped would be the last time. A sudden idea struck him.

"Take my hand," he said.

Elliott's eyes widened as he inched closer, suddenly aware of Renee and Mary behind them.

"What?" he said nervously. 

Tae Joon nodded at the portal and held out his hand. "I think it will be better," he said.

Elliott frowned at him. "Better?"

Tae Joon sighed irritably. "Safer," he said, like a confession. 

Elliott looked down at it. "Alright, if it makes you feel safer," he said childishly. 

"Fine, don't," Tae Joon said taking his hand away. 

"No, no, wait, I want to," Elliott said quickly.

Tae Joon smirked at him, and held out his hand once more.

"Ass," Elliott said, taking it tightly in his own.

Tae Joon curled his fingers tightly around Elliott's own and together they jumped into the Runner.

-

The feeling of Tae Joon's hand was soon lost to Elliott as he was dragged through the swirling void. He felt as though every part of him was being pulled apart and stretched, he could feel his mind screaming with it. He was strangely frantic about losing Tae Joon's body; he couldn't remember being so aware of himself while travelling through one of Renee's portals. 

"Tae?" he called out, but even if Tae Joon had answered he never would have heard it over the roaring of the void.

Everything he was feeling seemed to be coming from the inside, but all around him seemed almost still. Intangible. He called out for Tae Joon again.

-

Tae Joon felt very much the same as Elliott. The first thing he noticed was the loss of Elliott's hand in his and then everything else got a little harder to define. He felt calm despite the rushing that was overwhelming his senses, could feel something changing and shifting like he was being wrenched free of something. He called out Elliott's name, but there was no answer.

-

The universe, who up until this point had been strangely absent during this whole process, finally noticed that something was Up. Those two little shits were up to something again, and they were going to be damned if they were going to aspend another eon patching up another hole in their fabric.

They watched, ready to reach in and exact some well deserved justice, but then stopped. Something else was happening here. Something about which the universe had little understanding but which never failed to intrigue it. All the planets, all the lifeforms, all the millennia between them, and yet it always came down to this. They would always, _always_ reach out for each other, and try to find each other in the dark.

But _these_ two? Ugh. They fought so hard against the undeniable fact that they were supposed to be together that it was a wonder the universe hadn't stuck them in the _same_ body.

But now they watched, cosmic popcorn in metaphorical hand as they tried to fight the void _itself_ to find each other again, to deny that which was infinitely powerful, eternally greater then they ever could be. 

What the hell, the universe thought with a shrug. They were rooting for them. 

-

It was starting to hurt. There were no two ways about it, Elliott thought as a burning invaded his senses. He was beginning to feel more solid, more real, and that was the opposite of fun because his mind was starting to remember that his body had nerve endings. 

He tried not to yell but it was hard going. Panic was beginning to set in as everything became real, and he was starting not to care what state he was in once he got out of the other side of the Runner as long as this current nightmare was over. 

Then, like someone flicking a switch, everything stopped. 

Elliott opened his eyes. The ground felt solid beneath his feet but he couldn't see it. Everything around him was the most featureless, deepest black he had ever experienced, and with nothing to latch onto he felt disoriented and lost. 

"Hello?" he called out.

His voice ehoed eerily around him.

"Anyone?"

When there was no answer, Elliott began to walk.

-

Tae Joon was somewhere so completely else he felt lost. He was inside someone's house, the walls lined with pictures of smiling boys and Tae Joon had been fucked around by the universe enough now to already know he was standing in Elliott's childhood home. 

He instinctively looked down at his hands. 

Synthetics. 

He raised his fingers to his jaw and traced them along the familiar cool polymer. He let out a small breath. Right body, even if he was in the wrong place.

"Elliott? Is that you?"

Tae Joon swallowed and looked to the door. The answer was clearly no, not any more, and he couldn't think of anything worse than startling Evelyn so badly by invading her home. He glanced around quickly for an escape and bolted to one of the sash windows. 

He tugged and pulled at it but it wouldn't come lose.

"We had to nail it shut," Evelyn explained, suddenly standing in the doorway behind him. "The twins were awful for sleepwalking."

Tae Joon turned around quickly. "Dr. Witt, I'm sorry. I don't know how-"

Evelyn crossed her arms and leaned against the frame. "It'll be the Phase Runner I except sweetheart. Nasty bit of tech really. That's why I always preferred holograms. Effective, but harmless."

Tae Joon felt his shoulder tense. "How do you know about-?"

Evelyn sighed before smiling at him. "I'm sure a genius like you can figure it out. The odds are that I'm not real, just a manifestation of whatever goes on in that brain of yours."

"But this place. I've never been here. How can I know what it looks like?

"How do you know it looks like this?" Evelyn countered. 

Tae Joon glanced around at the pictures. The details were blurry, the features impossible to make sense of. Everything seemed a little too clean and showroom to be the sort of house four rowdy boys had grown up in.

"I don't understand," Tae Joon said.

"Then how am I supposed to?" Evelyn countered. "Everything I know, you know. But maybe you just need to hear those things said in another voice."

"Why?"

"Might be the only way you'll listen."

-

Elliott had been walking for so long and he was starting to get really frightened. What if the void had really fucked him over this time and he would be trapped in the vast, empty expanse, completely alone, forever?

He had already been through the same motions as Tae Joon and discovered his body was his own again, but it was of little comfort as he became more and more desperate. 

Then, like a beacon of hope in the distance, he saw the faintest, blinking green light. The sound of his footsteps magnified as he charged towards the light, and as he got closer it grew brighter and brighter.

It was starting to take on a shape as he got within arms reach, and when he stopped in front of it he realised it was Tae Joon's laptop. He looked at the screen.

There was a transcript of a conversation, apparently between Tae Joon and his mom but he couldn't make sense of it. He read it through, but typing his own response on to the keyboard did nothing and all he could do was watch. 

-

"What kind of things?"

Evelyn tilted her head. "Could tell you how you really feel about him. Could tell you it's not normal to lose sleep and your appetite thinking about one of your friends. Could tell you none of that matters because your voice or mine, you wouldn't do that to him, would you?"

"Do what?" Elliott muttered at the screen.

"Do what?" Tae Joon echoed.

Evelyn smiled sweetly at him. "You know Elliott. He's not his own biggest fan but he doesn't hate himself like he tried to make you believe. So why would he ever try?"

Tae Joon shook his head sowly. "I don't know."

Elliott blinked at the screen. He hadn't known either until he had seen it. "Oh..." he said gently.

"Yes you do. Elliott will go to ends of the world to protect you, to keep you safe. He was willing to give up everything. Why?"

Tae Joon's head snapped up and he looked at her. "I have to get out of here," he said quickly. 

Evelyn nodded. "That you do. Know how?"

"No." 

"Then neither do I."

-

Elliott began to look over the computer. If Tae Joon was talking to his mom then this must be his equivalent. Elliott wasn't doe-eyed enough to believe in things like soul mates, but once you've swapped bodies with a person he had to admit you were probably more bonded than most.

And he wasn't going to ignore the fact that Tae Joon seemed to have finally realised just how into him Elliot was. He just hoped that Tae Joon's response was borne out of urgency instead of fear. 

He looked down at his hand.

He had to get out of here, too.

-

The universe had done the cosmic equivalent of jolting up so violently it scattered their popcorn everywhere. Instead the universe sort of flexed and a few minor dimensions were wiped out. The universe was, in so much as it could be anything, _furious_.

It was one thing for these two idiots to blindy stagger around each other's own feelings in their own reality, but quite another for them to be creating whole new pocket dimensions to do it in.

Enough was more than fucking enough. Enough tearing holes in their fabric, enough raising tricky theological questions about the permanence of consciousness and enough being idiots about one another. The universe did something cosmic and massive and powerful, that was the infinite being version of locking them together in a broom closet and saying "Now kiss!" through the door.

-

Tae Joon landed on his feet, staggering slightly. Elliott did the same two feet away from him. They were in Elliott's room. 

Elliott was looking at Tae Joon and it was actually him, they were back where they were supposed to be.

Tae Joon looked him up and down and then turned away and stalked to the door. Elliott made no effort to follow him, they were both a little shell-shocked. 

Tae Joon grabbed the handle and pulled but the door didn't open.

"It's locked?" Tae Joon asked him. 

"Didn't know it could," Elliott replied, coming to stand beside him. 

Tae Joon turned to look at him as Elliott examined the door. "Of course it locks, it's the door to your room. How can you not-?"

Elliott shrugged. "We don't all have Evil Bastard Incorportated on our tails you know." He began to pull at the door. It didn't move.

"That's still nonsense," Tae Joon continued as Elliott began to strain as he yanked at the handle. "You live with a renowned thief."

Elliott shrugged. "Anything Loba wants she can have man, look around."

Tae Joon glanced at the room. "I've spent enough time here to know that isn't true." He put a hand on Elliott's shoulder. "Wait. What if we're not _actually_ here?"

"What?"

"Before, after we went in the Runner I didn't come straight here. First I went somewhere... else."

Elliott nodded. "You were with my mom." Elliott blinked. "Wait."

Tae Joon rolled his eyes. "Yes... but not... not really. It was just something my mind created."

"Why?"

Tae Joon looked back at the door. "Where were you?" 

"What?"

"You. Where did you go?"

Elliott jerked his shoulders. "I didn't go... anywhere. It was like literally nowhere. Nothing. Empty. Except for... uh, your laptop."

Tae Joon raised an eyebrow. "My laptop? What was on it?"

"You. And my mom. Talking I think but it was all written down."

He saw Tae Joon's face suddenly drain of colour and his eyes widen. "What did it say?"

Elliott swallowed. "Stuff. Couldn't make sense of most of it. Just... it's nothing. Not important. We should keep trying to get out of here."

Tae Joon looked between the door and Elliott. 

"I have feelings for you," he said plainly.

Elliott didn't look at him or stop trying the door. "No," he muttered. "Not now."

Tae Joon drew in a short breath.

"Why not?"

Elliott finally dropped his hand to his side and straightened up. "I fucking know, ok, I do, but I don't know what the fuck is going on or why and I am sick of having to have life changing revelations while I'm up to my neck in shit."

He sighed, reached out and took Tae Joon's hand. "But I do know," he repeated softly. 

-

They tried everything. More than once, Tae Joon floated the idea that they needed to talk out whatever the hell was going on between them, but Elliott didn't want to hear it. 

"What the hell kind of nonsense, romcom bullshit do you think we're in man?" he asked as he began to tear about the room, pulling the pillows and blankets from his bed, even flipping his mattress in his search for who knew what. 

"The kind that starts with us switching bodies," Tae Joon muttered, his arms folded as he watched Elliott flit about his room. "Clearly things are not in our control."

"Oh sure," Elliott said sarcastically as he began ripping out his drawers. "Some cosmic bastard is toying with us, and the only way to end this is with True Love's Kiss."

"True love?" Tae Joon said with a smirk.

"Just shut up and help me look, idiot," Elliott shot back. 

"For what?"

"I figure we'll know it when we see it."

-

They found nothing. Elliott found a lot more nothing because it was his room and he knew where all the nothing was. Tae Joon was getting frustrated with the way Elliott insisted on acting as though the room was real when clearly it was not. 

"Elliott, will you stop!" he snapped at last. "This isn't helping."

Tae Joon walked over to him, and saw a minute increase in the amount of panic and fear in his eyes. 

"Even if it doesn't work, I still think we should..."

Elliott stepped back. "Why? Why is it so important to talk about? What's gonna happen do you think? We'll be fine? Live happily ever after? Or are you just gonna disappear one day and I'll never know what happened to you?"

Tae Joon hesitated. "I-"

Elliott shook his head. "It doesn't matter what we say, and you know it. Nothing can ever come of this, and I don't know why you want to pretend it can."

Tae Joon looked down to the floor. "You're right. I know you're right. And I don't want to sound... but it was nice. To pretend. To sleep next to you and just... forget it."

Elliott sighed. "Ok... ok, I'm sorry. I didn't think-"

The room rumbled slightly, like a gentle earthquake.

"What the fuck was that?"

Tae Joon shook his head. "I don't know," he said in a whisper. "And look, we spoke about it and we're still here so I suppose it was not the way to get out."

Elliott nodded stiffly. "Yeah."

He glanced around the room, at the mess he had made.

"I don't want to forget it," he said, as if coming to a sudden realisation. 

"What?"

"I've been a complete asshole about this whole thing. A coward. Scared to lose you so I won't even risk having you in the first place. And that's... it's not fair."

He looked over at the bed. "Help me with this? You deserve to feel... safe. And I, oh god I can't believe I'm actually gonna say this shit out loud... I want to be the one who makes you feel that way."

Tae Joon laughed. "That's awful."

"Yeah, yeah, shut the fuck up and help me make the bed or you can get those stupid spider legs of yours crammed onto the couch."

-

Bed made, Elliott didn't bother getting changed or anything before laying down on top of the covers. "Come on then," he said, holding out his arms like an idiot. 

Tae Joon smiled at him. "This is bizarre," he said.

"Hell of a story to tell the grandkids, though," Elliott said, losing patience and grabbing Tae Joon by the wrist, dragging him forcefully down not only onto the bed but on top of Elliott too. 

"While you're there..." he said with a smirk and a wink.

Tae Joon kissed him.

Elliott didn't flinch or stop him, and only held him as tightly and as close as he could, understanding what Tae Joon meant. The idea that they could have this, be this, even if it was only pretend, was the best feeling in the world. 

Elliott shifted and moved Tae Joon so they were laying side by side on the bed, one hand resting gently on the hacker's hip while the other kept him propped up. 

He felt it all the way through him and he felt like he was completely Elliott again. Heart, body, soul, whatever, all of it was him and all of it was in love with Tae Joon Park. 

They broke apart gently, naturally, foreheads pressed together as they closed their eyes and tried to still their hearts. 

"Elliott..."

"Just go to sleep," Elliott replied softly, shifting down and pulling Tae Joon in close. 

"Ok."

-

Anita swore at the toaster, but it didn't care. Then she swore at Octavio to make herself feel better. 

"Chica, what?" Octavio demanded as he wedged a slice of bread into his mouth.

Anita yanked it back out. "This doesn't belong to you," she said, waving the soggy bread in his face. "And don't call me chica."

Octavio spat out a mouthful of crumbs. "Don't think Ell's gonna want it back. Probably got his mouth full with Hyeon's c-"

Anita whipped around and grabbed a butter knife. "Think long and hard before finishing that sentence civilian."

Octavio laughed. "You call that a knife? _This_ is a knife." He pulled out his butterfly stim and began performing all sorts of elaborate and fancy moves with it. Anita let it go on for about ten seconds before disarming him with ease. 

"Hey, no fair. Give it back!" Octavio whined. 

"Only when you promise to behave."

"Might as well get it monogrammed then, Williams," Elliott said as he and Tae Joon walked into the kitchen. "Cause that's never gonna happen."

Anita smirked and looked the knife over. "This little pig sticker? Better off melting it down for scrap."

"Hey come on, Elliott's got a _statue_ ," Octavio continued to complain. "At least mine's an actual weapon."

Anita sucked in a breath through her teeth. "I still got a lump on my head says that thing's a weapon, too."

Elliott held up his hands. "In my defence, you started it... Probably."

"Yeah, probably," Anita agreed, tossing Octavio's knife back to him. "You guys seem happier this morning. Man I wish I hadn't said that."

"You guys are all so fricken interested in my love life," Elliott said, walking up to the counter. "Might do you good to get ones of your own."

Tae Joon remained silent. Truth was, it wasn't comfortable for him to have people know that they were together, and it was weirder still for the information to proceed the act, but he knew it was the price he would have to pay. Was willing to pay. 

"Toast?" Elliott asked him.

"Thank you."

Elliott rooted around in the bag. "Why are there only crusts in here?"

There was the sudden sound of the plunge and hiss of a stim syringe. 

"Oh you little shit," Elliott breathed as Octavio zoomed away. Anita and Tae Joon watched as Elliott gave chase. 

"You got weird taste in guys, Kim," Anita muttered. 

"Yeah, I know," Tae Joon replied. "He is pretty though."

Anita let out an involuntary bark of laughter. 

"Yeah, if you're into that kind of thing."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok all done.
> 
> Thank you for all of the wonderful kudos and comments, means a lot in these dry, Cryptage less months. X


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